









^ o „ r „ 

. . v - /^;y^ % v> s 

VP ,\V * A -V rA>?^% ° 

xp » MwmL " <$ « ^xMJ/h c 

z 

f 



^ ‘ X 

t* Cs O ^ 

I ^ ^ o „ v 'k «'\ O 

o ' 1 8 * ■ <£ S c 0 N c * 

S 4 “ | 

wk A "• ^ v 

* c X° " « 

J- ' 




^^ l .,(•• V "> 






\ 

V " &% 

1 

8 « 

<\ y o * V 



! S 5 ’ •>, , c-/ z/ump ' .v 

*».*•' « 9 o L^i'-tU^ * <xh A, r „- 

* 3 N 0 ' ^ ^ ^ J | 1 4 xp X ^ * ■> s 0 P •0"' , ’O 

A 0 *'*«, ^ V> s s * 'p > v o> * ' * o\ % 

- ,\p v- si * *P~ , ^ -j * . .A' ■*• <3 t* <» 

^* v - ° z <<f *' : %^ - 




* 4 - 7 * * , 

" vV ^ ' ' 

x \~ ■* ■ r 


S* V ^ - lliif .* .$%, 

• •v %%*' * *' v°’.* ■ * * ,■%,'"' V' - °' '■ *'S>*‘ ** s ' 0 *° 

' v ' ' ■': * ~r. A' ■* <tfpv» - ^ 0 * 

tV; <*t : ,>>* -•;;**'*-./v * rr *'>o-; ^ 

s,v * <■ ^ a „ -« v\. * 

* _- s£^ ■! i|- (, c, ^ z y ^ 7 .. 

- S ^ * 9®: A V ^ c :■ 4 


^ ■%. 


«■ 

/ 



1 ' * « V' A * ,S *« %» / '**V 0 *° *" * ’<* 

1 * S* , * . 44 c> 0 U v x ,Y7 ^ ^ 

^ A' k ^\\ ' / v ^ * V- yj 

^ .>^ v & I IY/X 'z 'Crt 

o o N » 



. V* - 


* vO o 


c r ^ 



, * > a 

0> ^A, ' 

> ^ ^ Vx \ 




x0 o. 


® F ^ 

• nO Ci. 


S '^. - mim ■' v 

^ 0 > * v, c . 

% *' **S> 4° . , - C y 0« 4\ 

„ O- r 0 k ♦ <^- f 0 NC 


"'--NO 5 ^ 0 " 

^ ' * 0 A 


-•/’..•..v^ ? ^ ->> 

ti 1 ’ -*'(jMi; W frga; %> s< • 

& ✓ X 

x ^ *>/ H 

^ C o N c Jf ^ 0 » * s 

‘V -» <" O 


N C „ Y'_ 

^ v ' ^> 





0 N f; « v b 

3 

; '"o o 4 

* t 

ii* ^ ^ ^ U \x.._ 

V: c^* ^ ^ " * r\ 

« I '* ,\ V ... , ■»» ~0 5 ^ 0 J 

v'^, ", " . 0 ^ X x- 

<& * - ^ 

X 




</> iV ' 




- ^ * 
^ ^ "n 



















■i t 

•< V- V o 

*> * 

x<5°,. 

", > A »■■*"/■ o v ' ' 

O C,*^ * •' - I.*'' '*$' .V- * 

-S-. c5 -i<V S? /A O .^i' 

» ,\. „ - «<ii“ (V-2 * , % 2 

o.' > *<, o ,v 

* v/> * <V 

a v - * « £> -i 

C y o * x * x‘ V 

<5^ A ^ x C 0 

- *> * 

■.//:. -'- A > 

A 00 - . 

o *- 

®A * « i' 1 



** v % % 

r> x ^ ^ 

o * / ' 

0 N C 


N C , 


w 


C‘ t- 
“?/. * 8 I 1 


» ' \\^ ^ ^\ KV " A * rv) O * 

®| C % / % rf 


' * « / ^ * 1 * \Y s S * * , ^ 

£&• VY - r #M: 'W 

, A <s- ' ’ "" 

WW v* .** *' ^VV V ,♦ 

? *■ s *s° x , „ V 7 0 <■ X ^ ,'\ O ^ y s ^ . 0^ 

«- 0 v;V«y ^ //r*A /•'' 

Y t ... m ; "o o< ; 


b o X 



Y A. 


/- 


4 


■ V* 




pL$% = <Kj * 4^ * 

i ; ^ ^ ° 


'>/•=-’- ^ \ v -a . 2 '«'M\VV > j. 

X \\ %V S * M V ^o N o> ,- 
A‘> ^ ^ 'bo c^* 1 ^ 

KV o ^ 4 

,4' ^ - « 


*. A\ 
























. 




























































OLIVER CROMWELL. 

After the Painting by Robert Walker (Wrongly Attributed to Sir 
Peter Lely), Pitti Palace, Florence. 























Oliver Cromwell 


HIS LIFE, TIMES, BATTLEFIELDS, AND 

CONTEMPORARIES 


¥ 

By EDWIN PAXTON HOOD 

i\ 


WITH AN INTRODUCTION 

By G. MERCER ADAM 


> > > ' >* o > i 

fc on 

0 ) > ■> , 

> j y ) 

> > *> o *> » 


c o 


1 > * 

) > o 
") ) > > 

•) ** > 

) » 0 


3 3 > 

> y 

r> 9 


i l 

> > 


*» > > 

«) * 


> *> 
> ) 

© © 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 


) 

-> ■* 


> 


THE PERKINS BOOK COMPANY, 

296 Broadway, New York. 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

APR 10 1903 

Copynght Entry 

rn~ « # O'y 

CLASS ay XXo. No, 

1-r-Cl ! / 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1902, 

By E. A. BRAINERD, 












PREFACE. 


It is only necessary, in introducing this work, to 
inform the reader as to the intentions of the Author in 
writing it, and that which will be found in the course of 
its perusal. It is, then, simply true that, so far as I am 
aware, there is no popular and portable volume like that 
which I now present. Far more eloquent pages have 
been written vindicating the great Protector and his 
work—far more archaeological pages the result of pains¬ 
taking researches into the unexplored recesses and 
hiding-places of old documents. The Lives of Crom¬ 
well it would not be profitable to enumerate on this 
page—large and small, good, bad, and indifferent. Of 
these, 1 believe I have seen the greater number, but I 
have not seen one which answers the end proposed by 
this volume—that is, to set forth in a compendious man¬ 
ner, accessible to any person not possessed of too much 
time for wading through many or large volumes, the 
great Protector’s claims. If I am told that this is a 
needless work to attempt after the noble epic of Carlyle, 
I may be permitted to say that my slight volume may 
serve to whet the appetite for the patient study of the 
lines of that great runic Saga or song. 

Further, I have attempted, which no slight compre¬ 
hensive biography has done before, to set forth some 
account of those great contemporaries of Cromwell, 
some knowledge of whose lives is necessary, as their 
names must inevitably appear in connection with his, 



PREFACE. 


and who therefore at once illustrate the great hero’s 
work, while their works also receive illustration from 
his character and career. I would not have the reader 
expect too much ; but if he appreciate this volume ac¬ 
cording to its Author’s intention, it will be found to be, 
he trusts, neither uninteresting nor unuseful. Always 
let it be remembered that, boastful as this age is of its 
attainments in freedom of thought and liberty of con¬ 
science, even the most prominent agitators for such 
claims in our day have from Oliver Cromwell much yet 
to learn. 


PAXTON HOOD. 




INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

Among the statesmen of the Commonwealth era in 
English history no name is more illustrious, as few public 
personages in the realm have had a more beneficent career, 
than Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector, uncrowned king, 
and great champion of the Puritan cause. No character 
in history, it is a truism now to say, has been at once more 
lauded and more calumniated than this grand figure of 
the English Revolution, statesman, soldier, enlightened 
ruler, and patriot-lover of liberty. Praise has been his 
for the noble stand he made, at a momentous era in Eng¬ 
lish annals, in the interest of liberty, freedom, and salutary 
reform ; but odium has also been cast upon his name, for 
his share in the execution of Charles the First, and for his 
ruthless severity in Ireland, as well as for his contume¬ 
lious treatment of Parliament, and his usurpation of su¬ 
preme power. Yet while we admit that Cromwell was 
not a faultless man or void of ambition, he was personally 
incorruptible, sought no inglorious pomp, and truly de¬ 
sired and wrought for the happiness, prosperity, and well¬ 
being of his people and nation. If he overthrew, he did 
so from conscientious, and we may surely say from 
righteous, motives; and, as has been said of him, “ if he did 
not reign by or through the people, he reigned for the 
people.” The circumstances of his era were such as to 
call for a man just like Cromwell—“ a man fearing God 
first, yet without any other fear,” as Carlyle tells us— 
with the insight to see and to arise himself to remedy his 
country’s wrongs; to resist oppression in high places, 
which was taking away the rights and liberties of the 
people; and to denounce Charles’s flagrant and treacher¬ 
ous violation of the privileges of Parliament. Cromwell, 
no doubt, was far in advance of his time in his ideas of 

v 


VI 


INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 


parliamentary reform and religious toleration; but before 
the sword was drawn much might happily have been 
yielded, with advantage to both king and nation, had 
Charles shown himself to be a man who could understand 
and be reasoned with; and though “ it is a stern busi¬ 
ness the killing of a king,” was there any other way 
out than to do just that thing, since neither the royalists 
nor their master would yield; and after the rupture, when 
the Rump Parliament had brought him to trial, reconcilia¬ 
tion was then impossible. Hence followed the Barebones 
Parliament, the new council of state, with its constitution 
the Instrument of Government, the Lord Protectorship, 
and the temporary eclipse of monarchy. 

In the multitude of books on Cromwell, his age and 
career, it is a high service to students of his era, as well 
as to the general reader, to get so able and interesting a 
compend as the Rev. E. Paxton Hood has furnished in the 
following pages. His work has the merit of being not 
only a well-informed and painstaking biography, but also 
an instructive monograph dealing with the genius, the 
personal character, and the public services of “ His High¬ 
ness the Lord Protector.” In this respect, the Life of 
Cromwell is on a par with the same author’s Life of 
Wordsworth, and with his elaborate exposition of the 
genius and philosophy of Carlyle, who himself wrote, 
as all know, a noble prose epic on the hero of the Com¬ 
monwealth era. Mr. Hood writes entertainingly and with 
graphic force, and has also added to the value of his work 
by giving vivid accounts of Cromwell’s notable contem¬ 
poraries, the great men of action and the parliamentary 
leaders of the time: Hampden, Pym, Sir John Eliot, Sir 
Harry Yane, and Prince Rupert, the reckless cavalry 
leader on the royalist side, and nephew of the unfortunate 
Charles. 


G. Mercer Adam. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

Intboductoey.—Conflicting Theobies of Ceomwell’s Life, . 

CHAPTER II. 

Ancestby, Family, and Eakly Days,. 

CHAPTER III. 

Episode.—Contempobabies : Sib John Eliot. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Cbomwell, “The Loed of the Fens,” and Fibst Appeaeance 
in Paeliament,. 


CHAPTER Y. 

Episode.—Contempobabies : John Pym, . 

CHAPTER YI. 

The Tbaining of the Ibonsides, 

CHAPTER VII. 

Episode.—Contempobabies : John Hampden, 

CHAPTER Yin. 

The Battle of Maeston Moob, 

CHAPTER IX. 

Episode.—Contempobabies : Peince Rupebt, . 


PAGb 

9 


25 


49 


78 


91 


95 


10G 


113 


128 


The Battle of Naseby, 


CHAPTER X. 


132 




V1J1 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XI. page 

Cromwell in Ireland,.141 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Battle or Dunbar, .... ... 146 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Cromwell at Worcester, and the Romance of Boscobel, . 164 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Cromwell the Usurper, . ....... 175 

CHAPTER XV. 

Cromwell the Protector, . . . . . . . .186 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Foreign Policy and Power of Cromwell.202 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Last Days of Cromwell,.219 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Epilogue. —Contemporaries : Sir Harry Vane, . . . 230 


APPENDIX. 

I. The Farmer of St. Ives,. 261 

II The Battle of Dunbar,. 264 

III. The Martyrdom of Vane,. 268 

Index,.273 







/ 


INTRODUCTORY. 


CHAPTER I. 

CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL^ LIFE. 

In one of those stately old folio histories in which onr fore¬ 
fathers wrote the chronicles of England more than a century 
since, it was the wont of our dear old nurse, who supplied the 
place of a mother to us, to permit us to look , when the rare 
occasion came round on which we were rewarded because we 
had behaved somewhat better than usual. But well do we re¬ 
member, as we looked at the full-length portraits of the kings, 
and from these full-length portraits derived sometimes a better 
idea of the men than from the pages of the letterpress—mid¬ 
way through the book we came to a portrait that puzzled us : 
it stood opposite the page headed, “ Interregnum—Common¬ 
wealth/ , Yes, there stood a rough, robust being, without a 
crown, and yet with a most ominous hat upon his head, a 
broad-brimmed and steeple-crowned hat, like that we had seen 
on the heads of witches : and we could not but say to our old 
nurse, “ What does he here V’ Our old nurse was a woman, 
therefore a Royalist and Conservative. Moreover, she was 
very old, and her memory touched the generation which had 
heard Cromwell talked about. From her we gathered that the 
reason why this broad-hatted person stood there, was because 
he was a very badly-behaved character, and would on no ac¬ 
count be induced to take his hat off, even before his king.. 
We tried to make it out ; the story was very dark to us. But 
the son of our nurse was a very fine and thoughtful man ; and 
when to him we used to say, “ Why does he stand there with 



10 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


only a hat on ? Why has everybody else a crown, and he no 
crown ?” then he would tell us that he believed that there was 
more in his head beneath a hat than in those of any of the 
other kings who wore a crown, and that he was more king-like 
than all the kings. Thus our historical apprehensions were con¬ 
fused—as many wiser heads have been—at the commencement 
of our studies ; and even from our very earliest days we stum¬ 
bled, and became perplexed, over the two theories of Crom¬ 
well’s character. 

For it may be, perhaps, asserted, that the variety of opinion 
with reference to the character of Cromwell is almost as diver¬ 
sified as ever, although the collection of his letters and speeches 
by Thomas Carlyle has done so much to set him forth in a fair 
and honorable light, for which even those most enthusiastic for 
the career he represented were scarcely prepared. And it can¬ 
not be doubted that the estimate of his character will always be 
formed, not merely from sympathy with a certain set of opin¬ 
ions, but even more from that strange, occult, .and undefinable 
sentiment “which, arising from peculiarity of temperament, be¬ 
comes the creator of intellectual and even moral appreciation. 
Hence there are those to whom, whatever may be the amount 
of evidence for his purity, Cromwell can only be hateful ; 
while there are others, again, to whom, even if certain flaws or 
faults of character appear in him, he can only be admirable. 
It is very interesting to notice the varied estimates which have 
been formed of this great man, even within the present, or 
within this and the immediately preceding, generation. 

Robert Southey, for instance, a pleasant and venerable 
name in recent English letters, wrote a life of Cromwell to sus¬ 
tain his theory of the great Protector’s character. To him 
Cromwell was “ the most fortunate and least flagitious of 
usurpers ; he gained three kingdoms, the price which he paid 
for them was innocence and peace of mind. He left an im¬ 
perishable name, so stained with reproach, that notwithstand¬ 
ing the redeeming virtues which adorned him, it were better 
for him to be forgotten than to be so remembered, and in the 


CONFLICTIN'G THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 11 


world to come,— but it is not for us to anticipate the judg¬ 
ments, still less to limit the mercy, of the All-merciful.” And 
then he continues, “ Let us repeat that there is no portion of 
history in which it so behoves an Englishman to be thoroughly 
versed as in that of Cromwell’s age.” He says, indeed, that 
“ Cromwell’s good sense and good nature would have led him 
to govern equitably and mercifully, to promote literature, to 
cherish the arts, and to pour wine and oil into the wounds of 
the nation and he adds that “ the dangers to which he was 
exposed alone prevented him from carrying out all his 
wishes.” * To Southey, Cromwell was hypocritical, always 
looking out for himself ; he was conscious of a guilty ambition, 
he knew that he was doing wrong through the whole process 
of the struggle. He felt that he was a traitor, he knew that 
monarchy, aristocracy, and episcopacy were essential to the 
well-being of the country ; he overthrew them, and yet he 
sought in some sense to retain their images, although he had 
got rid of the things. He committed a great crime, he attained 
to the possession of sovereign power by means little less guilty 
than Macbeth ; but he dared not take the crown, and he dared 
not confer it upon the young Charles Stuart, because he knew 
the young man would never forgive his father’s death, and if 
he could be would be altogether unworthy to wear his father’s 
crown. What would not Cromwell have given, says Southey, 
whether he looked to this world or the next, if his hands had 
been clean of the king’s blood ! Such, in brief, was the por¬ 
trait it pleased Robert Southey to portray—such was his theory 
of Cromwell’s life. 

Of the life of Cromwell by John Forster it is more difficult 
to speak. He never withdrew his life of Cromwell, never for¬ 
mally announced his dissent from the doctrine and theory of 
Cromwell’s character contained in his “ Lives of the Statesmen 
of the Commonwealth.” We may fairly believe that this doc¬ 
trine is still held by multitudes whose general opinions as to the 
Long Parliament, and the possibility of the establishment of a 

* Southey’s “ Life of Cromwell,” p. 77. 


12 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


republic, are in unison with Mr. Forster’s. With Robert 
Southey, Cromwell was a traitor to Charles I. ; with Mr. Fors¬ 
ter, in his u Lives of the Statesmen,” he was a traitor to the 
cause of civil and religious liberty. Cromwell commenced his 
career in earnest and faithful love of liberty, certainly with a 
faithful determination, a sense of righteousness in his strong 
insubordination against tyranny. He was a man of singular 
intellect, sincerely religious, but his religious nature was 
wrought upon by a temperament almost hypochondriacal. His 
shrewdness soon enabled him to see the probable issues of the 
struggle ; his force of character soon elevated him to be the 
foremost man in it. Knowing, perhaps, nothing of Machia- 
velli, he became far greater and more perfect than Machiavelli 
himself as a deep and designing deceiver, full of contrivances. 
As his personal ambition grew more and more within him, he 
grasped at the shadow of personal authority ; but as he did so, 
and seemed to become possessed of the power at which he 
aimed, the means of government eluded him, or crumbled in 
his grasp, and difficulties and perplexities accumulated around 
him. The doctrine of Mr. Forster, in the work to which we 
refer, appears to be that Cromwell was not so much untrue to 
himself, considering the complicated weft of his character, aa 
that he was untrue to those great men, his friends, with whom 
he had wrought, and untrue to those principles for which he 
and they had struggled. He lived a life of torment, not be¬ 
cause he had killed the king, not because he had been a traitor 
to the royal cause, but because he had been a traitor to his 
friends and principles. The day of death, therefore, to Crom¬ 
well was, not less than his great days at Worcester and Dun¬ 
bar, “ his fortunate day,” because it released his entangled 
spirit from its cares. Such was Mr. Forster’s Cromwell, as 
portrayed in 1840. 

Another, and a far inferior portrait, was attempted some 
years since by M. Guizot, the ex-minister of France. Judging 
from that great historian’s lectures on the Civilization of 
Europe, it might have been supposed he would have taken a 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 13 


broad and eminently satisfactory view of the career of Crom¬ 
well. It is, in fact, the least satisfactory ; and he has con¬ 
trived to delineate a really inferior man, a great man, but enam¬ 
ored of the world’s substantial greatness. The business of his 
life was to arrive at government and to maintain himself in it ; 
and all who threw any bar or hindrance in his way were his 
enemies, and all whom he could use to that end were his 
friends, and they were his only friends. Hence, to substitute 
for a weak House of Stuart a strong House of Cromwell was 
the noblest aim of the Protectorate ; and he failed because, 
says M. Guizot, 44 God does not grant to the great men who 
have set on disorder the foundations of their greatness, the 
power to regulate at their pleasure and for centuries, even ac¬ 
cording to their better desires, the government of nations.” 
Guizot does not refuse to pay his meed of homage and justice 
to Cromwell ; but he seems to have been unable to conceive a 
great idea of the Protector’s ends. In his opinion Cromwell 
was thoroughly conscious of the weakness by which he was 
smitten as the punishment of his own acts, and, feeling about in 
all directions for some prop on which he could lean for sup¬ 
port, he selected liberty of conscience. Resigning the name of 
king, it was impossible for him to retain kingly authority. He 
had arrived at a slippery height, on which to stand still was 
impossible—there was no alternative but to mount higher or 
fall ; and therefore he died in the fulness of his power, though 
sorrowful—sorrowful “ not only because he must die, but also, 
and above all, because he must die without having attained his 
true and final purpose.” It is impossible not to perceive that 
M. Guizot has, in his theory of Cromwell’s character, deline¬ 
ated the Government, weak and selfish, of Louis Philippe, of 
which, in its fall, he was the minister. Men are usually un¬ 
able to conceive a loftier public ideal than their own realiza¬ 
tion ; and such is the Cromwell of Guizot. 

But in justice to Mr. John Forster, it must be said that he 
reviewed in a very able paper, entitled, 44 Cromwell, and the 
Civil Wars of England,” in the Edinburgh Review , this deline- 


14 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ation of M. Guizot, and sufficiently exhibited the unfaithfulness 
of the humiliating portrait ; for since his publication of the 
“ Lives of the Statesmen” had appeared the great collection 
and commentary of Carlyle, and it may be thought that this 
publication sets the character of Cromwell in a niche of honor¬ 
able security and rest forever. “Suppose,” said Eliot War- 
burton, in his ‘ ‘ Rupert and the Cavaliers, ’’ apologizing for the 
shameless perfidy revealed in the letters and correspondence of 
Charles I.—“ suppose all the letters of the crafty Cromwell had 
been discovered, what a revelation we should then have had !” 
Well, Cromwell’s letters have all at length been discovered and 
bound together, and their publication has been the best vindi¬ 
cation of the consistent integrity and healthful whole-hearted¬ 
ness of the man. According to Carlyle, the faith of Crom¬ 
well never rested on any doubtful or insecure foundations. 
Whoever else might forsake him, hope and faith never deserted 
him. He never consented to take part in any public affairs 
upon any compulsion less strong than that of conscience. He 
was guided by superior instinct and the practical good sense of 
a man set apart by God to govern. He had no premeditated 
plan or programme to which to conform. On the other hand, 
his principles were never to seek. He saw the drift of circum¬ 
stances, but he was nevertheless to guide them, to use and con¬ 
trol them, for the good of all. He had no personal ambition ; 
he was distracted by no fear, dazzled by no honor. Southey’s 
Cromwell was full of penitence for his treason against Charles. 
Forster’s was full of penitence for his treason against the repub¬ 
lican cause. Guizot’s Cromwell was full of sorrow on account 
of his failure in clutching at sovereignty and founding a 
dynasty. The real Cromwell, according to Carlyle, has no 
penitence of any kind, no sorrow, save for the sorrow and sin, 
the sad heirlooms of our race. He was the great champion of 
the Puritan cause, a sworn soldier to defend the rights of civil 
and spiritual freedom ; not to protect the interests of a party, 
but, so far as he could, to throw a shield over all ; having only 
a zeal for what he honestly believed to be God’s truth ; one of 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OE CROMWELL’S LIFE. 15 


those rare souls who could lay upon itself the lowliest and the 
loftiest duties ; a dutiful son ; for a large part of his life a 
quiet country gentleman ; a tender husband, a tender father ; a 
daring political leader ; a great soldier ; a man who knew men, 
and who could, as in his dealings with the subtle Mazarin, 
while preserving his own integrity, twist subtle statesmen to hia 
pleasure ; at last a powerful sovereign, so living, praying, 
dying ; no hypocrite, no traitor, but a champion and martyr of 
the Protestant and Puritanical faith. Such is the Cromwell of 
Thomas Carlyle, and such the Cromwell of the following pao-es. 
But thus it is that the variety of opinion as to the character 
and motives of this singular man seem to call from time to time 
for such resettings as may enable readers to obtain and form a 
clear idea for themselves of his character. 

We cannot readily find the instance of another personage in 
history whose acts and memory have been the subjects of such 
conflicting theories as those of Cromwell. The unphilosophical 
and paradoxical verdict of Hume, the historian of England, 
that he was a fanatical hypocrite, may now be dismissed ; we 
suppose that by all parties it is dismissed, with the contempt 
to which it is only entitled, to the limbo to which it properly 
belongs, with many other of the verdicts this writer ventured 
to announce in his history. Hume’s character as an historian 
has not only been long since impeached, but, by Mr. Brodie,* 
reliance upon its veracity has been entirely destroyed ; and 
even the Quarterly Review many years since distinctly showed 
in how many instances his prejudices have permitted him to 
distort evidence, and even to garble documents. And it was 
especially the case when writing concerning Charles I. and 
Cromwell, that “ he drew upon his imagination for his facts, 
and prejudices for his principles.” It is very remarkable, how¬ 
ever, that men, eminent for discrimination and judgment, well 

* “A History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles 
I. to the Restoration, etc., etc.; including a particular examination 
of Mr. Hume’s statements relative to the character of the English 
Government.” By George Bjrodie, Esq., Advocate. 4 vols., 1822. 


16 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


read in the story of the times, and in the interest of whos* 
opinion it seemed the very memory of such a man as Cromwell 
was involved, spoke of him and his actions with a kind of bated 
breath, as if they feared to incur some penalty in public opinion 
by too laudatory an utterance of his name. We think of such 
writers as William Orme, the more than respectable author of 
the lives of John Owen and Richard Baxter : he speaks of 
Cromwell as one of whom it is difficult to speak with candor 
and justice. He says that if “ to unmingled praise he is by no 
means entitled, unqualified censure is equally underserved ” j 
and he very oddly goes on to remark, that “ he did much to 
promote the glory of his country ; and if not a religious man 
himself, he yet promoted religion in others, and was eminently 
the friend of religious liberty at home and abroad. If he did 
not always act as he ought, it can scarcely be denied that few 
men who have grasped the rod of power have used it with so 
much moderation, and so generally for the good of others, as 
Oliver Cromwell.” The tone of Henry Rogers, in his life of 
John Howe, is precisely the same. He admits that “ Crom¬ 
well committed crimes” (!), but he “ does not think that his 
fanaticism actually perverted his moral judgment ” (!), al¬ 
though “ he was quite conscious that they were crimes which 
he had committed.” (!) And the remarks of these two excel¬ 
lent writers concur in their attempts to solve the singular mys¬ 
tery that Cromwell was so unquestionably attached to men so 
eminently holy as John How r e and John Owen, that he sought 
their friendship, and would have them present with him in his 
palace. 

This tone of remark has been long since dropped ; and 
among illustrious English writers, it is singular, perhaps, that 
even many years before Carlyle’s magnificent vindication, 
Macaulay had, in his own eloquent and glowing style, as dis¬ 
passionately as heartily, set forth the character of the great 
Protector in his blaze of eloquent language. He says : “ The 
ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to 
have coveted despotic power. _E[e, at first, fought sincerely 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 17 


and manfully for tlie Parliament, and never deserted it till it 
had deserted its duty. But even when thus placed by violence 
at the head of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He 
gave the country a constitution far more perfect than any which 
had, at that time, been known to the world. For himself, he 
demanded indeed the first place in the Commonwealth, but 
with powers scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder 
or an American president. He gave to Parliament a voice in 
the appointment of ministers, and left it to the whole legislative 
authority, not even reserving to himself a veto on its enact¬ 
ments ; and he did not require that the chief magistracy should 
be hereditary in his family. Thus far, if the circumstances of 
the time and the opportunities which he had for aggrandizing 
himself be fairly considered, he will not lose by comparison 
with Washington and Bolivar.” And our readers surely re¬ 
member what ought to be a well-known passage, in which Ma¬ 
caulay prophesies that “ truth and merit concerning Cromwell 
would at last prevail ; cowards, who had trembled at the very 
sound of his name—tools of office, who had been proud of the 
honor of lacqueying his coach, might insult him in loyal 
speeches and addresses—a fickle multitude might crowd to shout 
and scoff round the gibbeted remains of the greatest prince and 
soldier of the age ; but when the Dutch cannon startled an 
effeminate tyrant in his own palace—when the conquests which 
had been won by the armies of Cromwell were sold to pamper 
the harlots of Charles—when Englishmen were sent to fight 
under foreign banners against the independence of Europe and 
the Protestant religion, many honest hearts swelled in secret at 
the thought of one who had never suffered his country to be 
ill-used by any but himself. It must indeed have been difficult 
for any Englishman to see the salaried viceroy of France saunter¬ 
ing through his harem, yawning and talking nonsense, or be¬ 
slobbering his brother and his courtiers in a fit of maudlin 
affection, without a respectful and tender remembrance of him 
before whose genius the young pride of Louis and the veteran 
craft of Mazarin had stood rebuked—who had humbled Spain 


18 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


on the land and Holland on the sea, and whose imperial voice had 
arrested the sails of the Libyan pirates and the persecuting fires 
of Rome. Even to the present day his character, though con¬ 
stantly attacked and scarcely ever defended, is popular with the 
great body of our countrymen.” These eloquent words of the 
great essayist are simply true ; and in fact, the faith avowed 
by Macaulay was endorsed and demonstrated by the great vin¬ 
dication in the publication of the letters and speeches by 
Thomas Carlyle ; but we believe that through all the years that 
have elapsed since the great Protector died, there has been an 
instinctive sense in the heart of the English people that his 
name would be cleared from all mists and calumnies, and know 
a brilliant resurrection ; while we suppose it is true a thousand¬ 
fold now, as compared with the time when Macaulay penned 
his eulogy, that his character is popular with the great body of 
our countrymen. 

And yet, is it now a less difficult thing to bring before our 
readers with some vividness that strange and surely wraith-like 
form of robust yet mysterious majesty, which rises to our vision 
in the later twilight of English story ? Like the patron saint 
of England, St. George of Cappadocia—he of the dragon— 
Cromwell seems a strangely mythic character. In an age when 
real kings were dying or dead, and sham kings were flying from 
their own weakness beneath the outspread shadowy wings of 
Right Divine ; when, out of the sea and scenery of confusion, 
beasts rose and reigned, like hydras, seven-headed and seven¬ 
horned ;^vhen every man sought to do what was right in his 
own eyes ; when the prisons were full of victims, when the 
churches were full of mummeries—there rose a wraith, unex¬ 
pected, unprecedented in the history of the nation, perhaps of 
the world, and said, “ Well, then, you must settle your ac¬ 
count with me !” That quaint, broad-hatted majesty of our 
old folio histories was, without a doubt, the Pathfinder of his 
nation in that age. “ Pray, Mr. Hampden,” said Sir Philip 
Warwick, when Cromwell had been rather more forcible than 
usual, who is that sloven, who spoke just now j for I see he 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 19 


is on our side, by his speaking so warmly.” “ That sloven 
whom yon see before you, and who hath no ornament in his 
speech—that sloven, I say, if we should ever come to a breach 
with the king, which God forbid—that sloven, I say, will be, 
in that case, the greatest man in England.” For he was a true 
Pathfinder. He had a gift of simplicity as great as that finest 
creation of the American novelist, and an insight of wonderful 
power ; as one set down in the depth of a wilderness, where 
there seems to be no way, and is able to discover the thin, faint 
trail, and to detect the burning eyes of the savage where no life 
seemed to rustle beneath the tree. This was his gift : pre¬ 
science beyond the lot of mortals. This, like the scabbard of 
the good sword Excalibur, was more to him than the sword 
itself ; its hilt was armed with eyes. 

Vain, then, is the employment to ask : Is this man great ?— 
and vain to contest his sovereignty and his grandeur. Very 
vain. You say, indeed, “ What do you here, farmer that you 
are ; what do you here in the gallery of kings ?” Thus when 
we have climbed old Helvellyn, and had reached the height of 
its three thousand feet, we found ourselves amid a sanhedrim 
of crows and choughs—a sublime council of ravens ; and they 
said to the old hill, “Art thou larger than we? See, we 
perch upon thee, and peck on thee. Why art thou here ”? 
Sublimely stood the old mountain, the lightning-scathed crags 
in his sides bearing testimony to the thunder-strokes of ages, 
and seeming to say, “ Let it suffice : I am here.” It is the 
same with Oliver. He rises in the English story like a Helvel¬ 
lyn, or a sublime Peak of Teneriffe, and says, “ Let it suffice : 
I am here /” 

A few years since it would have sounded too bold if a 
writer, in introducing the great hero of the English Common¬ 
wealth to his readers, intimated his determination to attempt, 
in defending him, to throw new light round his position, to 
plead for his right to a lofty place in human estimation, and to 
assert the honesty and integrity of his manhood, and the value 
and the worth of the great work he performed. To say this 


20 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


now is almost a matter of supererogation. The time has 
gone by when Oliver Cromwell needed any man’s good word : 
the evidences of his life-long consistency of purpose, the gran¬ 
deur and durability of his legislative genius surround us on all 
hands. Gradually, from many quarters of a most opposite 
kind, proof has been accumulating. The wisest, who have 
been disposed to form an opinion adverse to the great English 
Protector, have confessed themselves compelled to pause before 
pronouncing ; others, again, have ransacked the archives of 
state paper offices, the heaps of dingy family letters and scrolls, 
every shred of paper bearing Oliver’s name that could be 
brought to light has been produced ; and the result is, that no 
name, perhaps, in all history stands forth so transparent and 
clear, so consistent throughout. It is the most royal name in 
English history, rivalling in its splendor that of Elizabeth, the 
Edwards, and the Henrys ; outshining the proudest names of 
the Norman, the Plantagenet, or the Tudor. 

Doubtless, as we have often heard, great men are the out- 
births of their time ; there is a providence in their appearance, 
they are not the product of chance ; they come, God-appoint¬ 
ed, to do their work among men, and they are immortal till 
their work is done. We should not, perhaps, speak so much 
of the absolute greatness of the men of one age as compared 
with the men of another ; they are all equally fitted to the task 
of the day. Let the man who most hates the memory of Crom¬ 
well, ask not so much what the land and the law were with 
him, as what they must inevitably have been without him. 
Remove the leading man from any time, and you break the 
harmony of the time, you destroy the work of that age ; for an 
age cannot move without its great men—they inspire it, they 
urge it forward, they are its priests and its prophets and its 
monarchs. The hero of a time, therefore, is the history of a 
time ; he is the focus where influences are gathered, and from 
whence they shoot out. It has been said that all institutions 
are the projected shadow of some great man, he has absorbed 
all the light of his time in himself ; perhaps he has not created, 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 21 


yet now lie throws forth light from his name, clear, steady, 
practical light, that shall travel over a century ; his name shall 
be the synonym of an epoch, and shall include all the events of 
that age. Thus it is with Cromwell ; hence, very happily, the 
time of the Commonwealth has been called the Cromwelliad. 

But the sublime unconsciousness of this great spirit is the 
most leading characteristic indication of his greatness. The 
reader may remember what Cardinal de Retz said : “ M. de 
Bellivre, “ said the cardinal, “told me that he had seen and 
known Cromwell in England. And he said to me one day, 
that one never mounted so high as when one did not know 
where one was going. ” Whereupon says the cardinal, “You 
know I have a great horror of Cromwell ; but however great a 
man many think him, I add to this horror contempt, for if that 
be his opinion, he seems to me to be a fool.” But Cromwell 
was right. This is, indeed, in all things true grandeur : the 
unconscious is alone complete. The eminently tricky cardinal 
did not know the great flights of an unconscious spirit, and 
how surely the measure of the one is, in great souls, the height 
of the other. No doubt Cromwell was amazed at the lofty 
elevation to which he ascended ; for he commenced his public 
career without any plan ; he threw himself, and his fortunes, 
and his life, into the scale against the king, and on the side of 
the people. He was at that time a plain country yeoman. We 
do not believe that he had any ambition other than to serve the 
cause with a brave pure heart. Could he, whose unnoticed 
days had been passed by a farmer’s ingle, see gleaming before 
his eyes a crown, which he might refuse ? Could he, who had 
spent his later years in following the plough, dream that he 
should draw the sword, only to find himself at last the greatest 
general of his own age, and one of the greatest soldiers of any 
age ? Well might he say, “ One never mounts so high as when 
one does not know where one is going .’ 7 It is the sublime of 
human philosophy and character to be able to say this ; it is 
faith in Providence and in destiny alone which can say this. 
When he first entered on the struggle, his thought, no doubt, 


22 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


was to fulfil a duty or two upon the field and in the senate, and 
then go back to his farm. He little thought that he was to be 
the umpire of the whole contest. 

Certain it is that we are to seek for what Cromwell was in 
after life, in those early days of his history. Some writers, 
Guizot among the rest, have said that he adopted theories of 
liberty of conscience, and so forth, to suit his ambition and his 
success. Not he ! He was for years, before the breaking out 
of civil war, substantially all that he was after. When he 
entered upon his career of public life, he had no principles to 
seek ; he had found them long since, and he acted upon them 
invariably. Nor can we perceive that he adopted any new 
principles, or expedients, through the whole of his future 
career. Cromwell was all that we include in the term Puritan. 
His whole public life was the result of that mental experience 
by which his faith was moulded. In him there was a pro¬ 
found reverence for the law of God. He had an instinctive 
apprehension of order. To disfranchise, to rout and put to 
flight the imbecilities of anarchists ; such was his work. A 
sworn soldier of the Decalogue was he. Say that he read with 
keen vividness into men’s hearts and men’s purposes ; well, he 
did so, as any man may do, by the light of high intelligent 
principles within him. In many things, we do not doubt, he 
much misinterpreted texts of the Divine Book. Perhaps he 
was too much a “ Hebrew of the Hebrews.” Some do not see 
how a man can be faithfully a Christian man and also a soldier ; 
but if he will be a soldier, then we do not see how he can fulfil 
a soldier’s duty better than by looking into the Old Testament. 
We see plainly that we shall not know Cromwell's character and 
deeds unless we acquaint ourselves with Cromwell's theology. 

His theology made the life of his home in old farmer days 
at St. Ives. His theology guided his impressions of men and 
events. His theology went with him to the army, and kindled 
there his heroism, and, if you will, his enthusiasm. His the¬ 
ology ruled his character in the senate and on the throne. It 
was not merely his speech, but deep, far beneath his speech, 


CONFLICTING THEORIES OF CROMWELL’S LIFE. 23 


lay his great thoughts of God ; and unless you understand his 
inner depth of vital conviction, you will have no comprehen¬ 
sion of the man. His mind was fostered from the unseen 
springs of meditation, and from reading in that literature, un¬ 
questionably the most glorious in magnificence and wealth we . 
have had. In our age we have little religious literature : the 
mighty folios in which the Puritan fathers taught have dwin¬ 
dled down to the thin tracts in which our friend the Rev. Octa- 
vian Longcloth, or his curate, the Rev. Dismal Darkman, mix 
their acidulated milk and water for weak stomachs. Far 
different was the theology of Cromwell and the writers of 
Cromwell’s age. Manton, himself one of the greatest of these 
writers, says Cromwell had a large and well-selected library. 
Many of our most famous pieces were then unwritten ; but 
there were some pieces of Smith, Caudray, Adams, Owen, 
Goodwin, and Mede, and the earlier fathers, and Calvin, and 
Hooker, and Herbert’s lyrics. We think such were the men 
with whom Cromwell walked and mused, and whose writings 
shed light into his soul. 

Sir John Goodricke used to relate a remarkable anecdote, 
which we should probably assign to the siege of Knaresbor- 
ough Castle, in 1644, and which was told him when a boy, by 
a very old woman, who had formerly attended his mother in 
the capacity of midwife. “ When Cromwell came to lodge in 
our house, in Knaresborough,” said she, “ I was then but a 
young girl. Having heard much talk about the man, I looked 
at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals, 
and air his bed, I could not, during the operation, forbear 
peeping over my shoulder several times to observe this extraor¬ 
dinary person, who was seated at the far side of the room 
untying his garters. Having aired the bed, I went out, and 
shutting the door after me, stopped and peeped through the 
keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the 
bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for 
some time. When returning again, I found him still at 
prayer ; and this was his custom every night so long as he 


24 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


stayed at our house ; from which I concluded he must be a 
good man ; and this opinion I always maintained afterward, 
though I heard him very much blamed and exceedingly 
abused.” 

No ! we should say there would be no shaking this woman’s 
faith in him. To her he would appear as what he was—genu¬ 
ine and transparent. How many of Cromwell’s maligners, 
how many of us writers and readers, would stand the test of 
the keyhole ? 


CHAPTER II. 


9 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 

It cannot be an unimportant thing to glance at the ancestry 
of a powerful man ; and that of Cromwell is very curious, more 
like that of the Tudors, whom he so much resembles, than like 
that of any other royal name of England. He was descended 
from a Celtic stock by his mother’s side. He was a ninth 
cousin of Charles I.* Elizabeth Steward, Mrs. Robert Crom¬ 
well, the mother of Oliver, was descended from Alexander, the 
Lord High Steward of Scotland—the ancestor of the whole 
family of the Stewarts. This is one of the most singular coin¬ 
cidences occurring in history ; but the family of Cromwell’s 
father was from Wales. He was the second son of Sir Henry 
Cromwell, himself eldest son and heir to Sir Richard Williams, 
alias Cromwell, who, as the issue of Morgan Williams, by his 
marriage with a sister of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Earl of 
Essex, assumed—like his father—the name of Cromwell. 
Morgan ap Williams is said to have derived his family from a 
noble lineage, namely, that of the Lords of Powys and Cardi¬ 
gan, who flourished' during the period of the conquest. But 
of this we are not herald sufficient to declare the truth ; how¬ 
ever, all Welsh blood is royal or noble. The elevation of the 
Cromwell family is to be dated from the introduction of Rich¬ 
ard Williams to the Court of Henry VIII., by Thomas Crom¬ 
well, the son of Walter Cromwell, some time a blacksmith, and 
afterward a brewer at Putney, in Surrey, and a great favorite 
with the bluff old Hal. Richard Williams appears to have 
been—and he was—one of the few royal favorites who did not 
lose his head as the penalty for his sovereign’s favoritism. 

* For a stream of Cromwell’s ancestry, and proof of this, see 
Forster’s “Lives of British Statesmen,” vol. vi. pp. 35-307. But 
more explicitly in “ The Cromwell Family” of Mark Noble. 


26 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


We have an account of a great tournament, held by King 
Harry, where Richard acquitted himself right gallantly. 
There the king knighted him, and presented him with a dia¬ 
mond ring, exclaiming, “ Formerly thou was my Dick, but 
now thou art my Diamond,” and bidding him for the future 
wear such a one in the fore gamb of the demi-lion in his crest, 
instead of a javelin as before. The arms of Sir Richard, with 
this alteration, were ever afterward borne by the elder branch 
of the family ; and by Oliver himself, on his assuming the 
Protectorship, though previously he had borne the javelin. 
Henry himself, it will be remembered, was of Welsh descent ; 
and he strongly recommended it to the Welsh to adopt the 
mode of most civilized nations, in taking family names, instead 
of their manner of adding their father’s, and, perhaps, their 
grandfather’s name to their own Christian one, as Morgan ap 
Williams, or Richard ap Morgan ap Williams. 

Great was the munificence and large the possessions of the 
Cromwell family. Our Oliver, indeed, appears to have been 
poor enough for so great a connection ; but his uncle, Sir 
Oliver, inherited all the estates of his ancestor, Sir Richard ; 
and these included many of those wealthy monasteries and 
nunneries for the escheatment and confiscation of which 
Thomas Cromwell has become so famous, constituting him 
Malleus Monachorum, the “ Hammerer of Monasteries,” as 
Oliver has been called Malleus Monarchorum , or the “ Ham¬ 
merer of Kings and Thrones.” 

Hincliinbrook, near Huntingdon, was the residence of Sir 
Oliver. There, no doubt, he kept up a magnificent old Eng¬ 
lish cheer. Beneath his gateway he received, and in his halls 
he entertained, three English monarchs. Elizabeth, when she 
left the University of Cambridge, paid him a visit ; King 
James I. was entertained by him several times ; as was also 
Charles I. But the great festivity of his life was his reception 
of James on his way to London from Edinburgh, when he suc¬ 
ceeded to the English throne. High feasting days were those 
at Hinchinbrook House. The king came in a kind of state ; 


AKCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


27 


Sir Oliver entertained all comers with the choicest viands and 
wines, and even the populace had free access to the cellars dur¬ 
ing His Majesty’s stay. At his leaving Hinchinbrook, after 
breakfast, on the 29th of April, he was pleased to express his 
obligations to the baronet and his lady, saying to the former, 
with his characteristic vulgarity, “ Marry, mon, thou hast 
treated me better than any one since I left Edinburgh and 
an old chronicler remarks, “It is more than probable, better 
than ever that prince was treated before or after for it is said 
Sir Oliver at this time gave the greatest feast that had been 
given to a king by a subject. 

We shall not have occasion to refer to Sir Oliver again 
throughout this biography, and therefore we may close this 
notice of him by saying that he continued throughout his life 
loyal to the cause of king and cavalier. He obliged all his sons 
to serve in the Royalist army, and was ever more obnoxious to 
the Parliamentarian cause than any person in his neighborhood. 
At last he was obliged to sell his seat of Hinchinbrook, and he 
retired to live in silence and quiet in Ramsey, in the county of 
Huntingdon. His whole estates were sequestrated, but spared 
through the interposition and for the sake of his illustrious 
nephew. He never, however, courted the favor of Oliver, and 
no doubt was heartily ashamed of him. The losses he sus¬ 
tained from his loyalty were so great that, as the shades of the 
evening of life closed round him, they found him deep in 
pecuniary difficulties ; and he is said to have been buried, in 
the evening of the day on which he died, in the chancel of 
Ramsey church, in order to prevent his body being seized for 
debt.* 

But although we linger thus long upon the ancestry and rela¬ 
tionships of Oliver (perhaps it may be thought too long), it 
must not be supposed that we do so from any foolish effort to 

* The reader may recall one of the most charming of the imaginary 
conversations of Walter Savage Landor as being between old Sir 
Oliver and his nephew and namesake, beneath the gateway of 
Itamsey Abbey. 


28 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


disconnect him from the ranks of toil and labor. The truth 
appears to be that Mr. Robert Cromwell, the brother of Sir 
Oliver, was by no means his brother’s equal in either position 
or wealth. The honors of the family would be, of course, re¬ 
flected upon him, but his income never exceeded, indepen¬ 
dently, £300 per annum, and it is certain that he sought to in¬ 
crease his fortune by engaging in trade. He appears to have 
been a brewer, but he was also a justice of the peace for 
Huntingdon. He represented the same town in Parliament in 
the thirty-fifth of Elizabeth ; and he was one of the commis¬ 
sioners for draining the fens. He appears to have been a plain 
and simple country gentleman ; but it is probable his inter¬ 
course with the world had enabled him to give to his son views 
of men and things which might materially influence his impres¬ 
sions in after life. 

Oliver Cromwell, one of the most illustrious captains on the 
field and legislators in the cabinet of any age, was born at 
Huntingdon, April 25th, 1599. 

In the region of the Fens, then, our English hero was 
reared ; a quiet, picturesque region, far removed from any 
bold or exciting scenery. There, now as then, the quiet 
waters of the winding Ouse pursue their way amid sedgy banks 
and stunted poplars and willows ; amid fields not so well 
drained as now, and amid scenes farther removed than now 
they seem from the noise of the great world. There the 
mystery of life fell upon him ; and in rambles about God- 
manchester, and Houghton, and Warbois, and the Upper and 
Lower Ilemingfords—all of them at that time having the repu¬ 
tation of being witch-haunted, and therefore under the atrocious 
visitations of Matthew Hopkins—there, in these spots, Oliver 
found his sport-places and play-grounds, and there, no doubt, 
his young mind was haunted by strange dreams. We need not 
keep our readers with narrations as to how he was saved from 
drowning by one who wished afterward that he had let him 
drown ; how he wrestled with little Charles, Prince of Wales, 
as he came along that way with his father, James I., and 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AKD EARLY DAYS. 


29 


enjoyed the hospitality of old Sir Oliver Cromwell, at Hinchin- 
brook ; how he was endangered and saved, in his childhood, 
from death, by a monkey. 

“ His very infancy,” says Noble, “if we believe what Mr. 
Audley, brother to the famous civilian, says he heard some old 
men tell his grandfather—was marked with a peculiar accident, 
that seemed to threaten the existent of the future Protector : 
for his grandfather, Sir Henry Cromwell, having sent for him 
to Hinchinbrook—near Huntingdon, the ancient family seat— 
when an infant in arms, a monkey took him from his cradle 
and ran with him upon the Jead that covered the roofing of the 
house. Alarmed at the danger Oliver was in, the family 
brought beds to catch him upon, fearing the creature’s drop¬ 
ping him down ; but the sagacious animal brought the ‘ For¬ 
tune of England ’ down in safety ; so narrow an escape had 
he, who was doomed to be the Conqueror and Magistrate of 
three mighty nations, from the paws of a monkey. He is also 
said to have been once saved from drowning by a Mr. Johnson, 
Curate of Cunnington ; a fact more credible, perhaps, for that 
the same worthy clergyman should at a future period, when 
Oliver was marching at the head of his troops through Hunting¬ 
don, have told him, that he ‘ wished he had put him in, rather 
than have seen him in arms against the king : * ” the latter 
part of which story is probably a loyal but fabulous appendage 
tagged, after the Restoration, to the former. 

Anecdotes of the first days of men who have attained to any 
kind of command over their fellows are frequently important ; 
they give a clue to the state of opinion about them during their 
lifetime. It is probable that most of such stories, although 
somewhat inflated in their tone, may yet have a fundamental 
substance of truth and dramatic propriety. Thus there are a 
few tales told of our hero which do appear to be, in no slight 
degree, illustrative of his after life ; and thus we should expect 
it to be. Manhood is contained in boyhood ; do we not often 
echo the words of our poet, “ the child is father to the man” ? 
We cannot conceive Oliver inferior to his young comrades, 


30 


OILVER CROMWELL. 


either in physical or mental prowess : he was, beyond all 
doubt, a burly little Briton, with large resources of strength ; 
and from a shrewd comprehension of things, whether in sport 
or in school, and a musing, dreamy, half poetic (in those 
days), all enthusiastic temperament, was, no doubt, frequently 
carried far out of the reach of his playmates and companions. 
All childhoods are not cheerful, all childhoods are not exempt 
from care. Strong and sensitive natures are stamped with a 
wonderful precocity ; even in their cradles the shadows of 
future achievements, the prophecies of unperformed actions, 
cross the path. Dim and undefined, like worlds not realized, 
their destiny rises before them like a painting on the mist, even 
in the very earliest of their years ; and Oliver was of that 
peculiar temperament that it seems necessary to believe that 
such a boyhood was his. 

He went to Huntingdon Free Grammar School, and the 
place we believe is still shown where he sat and studied his 
first lessons. Heath, a scurrilous compiler of a life of Crom¬ 
well, who has been handed down to future years by Carlyle 
under the patronymic of “ Carrion Heath,” has, with a 
laudable zeal, chronicled the number of dovecotes robbed by 
our daring little Protector ; with a meanness of malice un¬ 
equalled, he has recounted his adventures in breaking into 
orchards, and other such juvenile offences. For our part, 
we do not doubt both his capabilities and disposition for such 
adventures. 

More interesting will it be for us to notice the various tradi¬ 
tions that have come down to us of the feats and appearances 
of those early days. Especially is it recorded that Charles I., 
when a child, was with his father, the king, at Hinchinbrook 
House, the seat of Sir Oliver, of whom we have made mention 
above ; he was then Duke of York. And that he should visit 
the old knight is very likely, as we do know that many times 
the hospitable gates were thrown open to the monarch and his 
family, either going to or returning from the north to the 
English capital. But upon this occasion the future monarch 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


31 


and future Protector met, and engaged each other in childish 
sport, in which Charles got the worst of it. 

lor what fixed the attention of the lovers of prognostications 
in that and succeeding ages, was that “ the youths had not 
been long together before Charles and Oliver disagreed ; and, 
as the former was then as weakly as the latter was strong, it 
was no wonder that the royal visitant was worsted ; and 
Oliver, even at this age, so little regarded dignity, that 
he made the royal blood flow in copious streams from the 
prince’s nose.” “This,” adds the author, “was looked 
upon as a bad presage for the king when the civil wars com¬ 
menced.” 

Certainly there is nothing unlikely or improbable in this 
anecdote. If Charles visited Hinchinbrook—and that he did 
frequently has all the certainty of moral evidence—he would 
surely meet young Oliver, and he would certainly not be in his 
company long, we may venture to assert, without a quarrel ; 
haughty obstinacy and daring resolution—the weakness and 
effeminacy of a child of the Court, and the sturdy independence 
and strength of the little rustic farmer—would easily produce 
the consequences indicated in the story. 

The same writer relates as “ more certain,” and what Oliver 
himself, he says, “ often averred, when he was at the height of 
his glory,” that, on a certain night, in his childhood, he “ saw 
a gigantic figure, which came and opened the curtains of his 
bed, and told him that he should be the greatest person in the 
kingdom, but did not mention the word king ; and,” continues 
the reverend narrator, “ though he was told of the folly as well 
as wickedness of such an assertion, he persisted in it ; for 
which he was flogged by Dr. Beard, at the particular desire of 
his father ; notwithstanding which, he would sometimes repeat 
it to his uncle Stewart, who told him it was traitorous to relate 
it.” Different versions have been given of this tale. It even 
finds a place, with much other serious anti-monarchical matter, 
in what Lord Clarendon so intemperately (as the great Fox ob¬ 
served) called his “ History of the Rebellion” ; but we dismiss 


32 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


it for the moment, again to recur to the pages of that indefati¬ 
gable collector, Mark Noble. 

For yet another incident recorded of these years is connected 
with the performance of a comedy called Lingua , attributed to 
Anthony Brewer, and celebrating the contest of the five senses 
for the crown of superiority, and discussing the pretensions of 
the tongue to be admitted as a sixth sense. It is certainly a 
proof of the admitted superiority of Oliver over his schoolfel¬ 
lows, that the principal character was awarded to him ; and 
truly there is something remarkable in the coincidence of some 
of his impersonations and the realities of his future life. In 
the character of Tactus, or the sense of feeling, “ The little 
actor came from his tiring-room upon the stage, his head encir¬ 
cled with a chaplet of laurel. He stumbled over a crown pur¬ 
posely laid there, and, stooping down, he took it, and crowned 
himself. It is said—but how likely that such things should 
be said !—that he exhibited more than ordinary emotion as he 
delivered the inajestical words of the piece.” Nor may we 
refuse to believe that his mind felt something of the import of 
the words he uttered : all unconscious as he was that he was 
uttering a prophecy connected with his own life ; and he 
would, perhaps, recur to them when, in after years, he came, 
from a position so lowly, to be so near to the neighborhood of 
a crown ; when the highest symbols of power were brought to 
his touchy and his name, lauded in poetry and oratory, alike by 
friends and parasites, was placed on the level of the Caesars and 
Alexanders, as he strode on from height to height of pride and 
power. 

Oliver had a very stern schoolmaster, and whatever may 
have been the necessity existing for it, Dr. Beard is said to 
have visited upon him a severity of discipline unusual even for 
those severe days. 

Thus we obtain glimpses of his early life : thus it comes be¬ 
fore us. He was learning then—learning in many and various 
ways—around the hearth at Huntingdon. By the winter fire¬ 
side he would hear the rumors from the great world of the 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 33 

Popish Gunpowder Plot ; he was six years old when the news 
of this would reach his father’s house. He was eleven when 
Henry of Navarre, the defender of the Protestants of France, 
was assassinated. Sir Walter Raleigh, too, the intelligence of 
his death would be noted ; and the quiet and glorious end of 
the fine old martyr to Spanish gold and Spanish influence 
would make some impression, even upon the quiet dwellers of 
Huntingdonshire. We do not know his playmates : of one 
we have caught a dim shadow, a royal playmate, no match for 
our stubborn little hero. Another we may fancy with him in 
tne playground, his cousin, John Hampden, five years older 
than Oliver ; kind, but firm, gentle, thoughtful, mild, he would 
temper the fiercer spirit. They certainly knew each other in 
those days, and played together. That surely is a scene on 
which artist and poet may linger, the two boys, John Hampden 
and Oliver Cromwell, together ! We attempt to follow them 
through their days of youth, their sports of the field ; and 
strive to imagine the two strong, stately men—warriors, legis¬ 
lators, representatives of English mind and opinion, disputants 
with a king—in their simple boyhood’s life. 

We wonder at some things in Cromwell’s history. We 
wonder that in his after years, while his soul was so blessed by 
a large toleration, he so resolutely and intolerantly hated 
Romanism. We must remember, as we have already said, that 
when Oliver was six years old there came to his father’s house 
in Huntingdon the news of the Gunpowder Plot ; we must 
remember that a feline Jesuitism was sneaking over the whole 
of England, and round the courts of Europe and through its 
kingdoms ; we must remember that when he was only eleven 
years old the brave Henry of Navarre was murdered in the 
streets of Paris—fine defender of Protestantism that he was ! 
Pieces of news like these were calculated to sting a boy s mem¬ 
ory, and to remain there, and to leave a perpetual irritation. 
Popery was to be hated then •,—we now may afford to forgive 
what Popery has done. In that day it did not well comport 
with public safety to be so tranquil ; so Oliver listened as a 


34 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


boy, and treasured these things in his recollection, and when 
the time came—the day of wrath—he heaped up the wrath, 
and sought to set fire to the whole tawdry mass of error and 
corruption. 

Let us pause for a moment or two upon the days of Crom¬ 
well’s boyhood ; those, as we have seen, were the days when 
James I. was king ; probably, as we have said, the lad often 
saw him at the house of his uncle, Sir Oliver ; the sight would 
not be likely to enhance his conceptions of the dignity of the 
sovereign, as the tales he heard would be as little likely to in¬ 
crease his respect for kingly power. It will not be out of place 
here to devote a word or two to the delineation of the person 
and character of the first of the English Stewarts ; for with 
him, unquestionably, those troubles began which Oliver, by and 
by, would be called upon to settle. 

There were many unfortunate circumstances which combined 
to bring about the unhappy doom of Charles I. He was un¬ 
fortunate in his own nature, in himself ; it was unhappy that 
one with a nature so weak, and a will so strong, should be 
called upon to faee men and circumstances such as he found 
arrayed against him. But we have always thought the most 
unfortunate circumstance in the life of Charles to have been 
that he was the son of his father. The name of James I. has 
become, and speaking upon the best authority is, synonymous 
with every sentiment of contempt ; it is quite doubtful 
whether a single feature of character, or a single incident in his 
history, can command unchallenged regard or respect : that 
about him which does not provoke indignation, excites laugh¬ 
ter. His conduct as the sovereign of his own country, of Scot¬ 
land—before he succeeded to the throne of England—was such 
as to awaken more than our suspicion, beyond doubt to arouse 
our abhorrence. He has been handed down through history as 
a great investigator of the mysteries of king-craft ; but the 
record of the criminal trials of Scotland seems to show that he 
chiefly exercised his sagacity among those mysteries for the 
purpose of procuring vengeance on those monsters of iniquity 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


35 


who had sneered at his person or undervalued his abilities. 
Whenever his own person was reflected on, he followed the de¬ 
linquent like a panther prowling for his prey ; and, as Pitcairn 
has shown in his immense and invaluable work on the criminal 
trials of Scotland, he never failed in pursuing his victim to 
death. It is worth while to recite an instance or two : On the 
third of August, 1596, John Dickson, an Englishman, was in¬ 
dicted for uttering calumnious and slanderous speeches against 
the king. The amount of his offence was, that being drunk, 
he had allowed a boat he was managing to come in the way of 
one of the king’s ordnance vessels, when, being called upon by 
Archibald Gairdenar, one of his majesty’s cannoners, to give 
place to his majesty’s ordnance, “ he fyrst ansserit, that he 
would nocht vyre his boit for king or kasard : and thairefter, 
maist proudlie, arrogantlie, shlanderouslie, and calumniouslie 
callit his majestie ane bastard king : and that he was nocht 
worthie to be obeyit. ” The jury found him guilty, but quali¬ 
fied their verdict by admitting his drunkenness ; but their quali¬ 
fication did not avail—-the poor fellow was hanged. Another 
case Mr. Pitcairn gives, of John Fleming, of Cohburn Path, 
who was indicted for uttering treasonable, blasphemous, and 
damnable speeches against the king. He appears to have lost 
a case in litigation ; and on being asked why he uttered blas¬ 
phemous and horrible words concerning the king, he made this 
scornful and disdainful answer, “ That were it not for the king 
and his laws, he would not have lost his lands ; and therefore 
he cared not for the king, for hanging would be the worst for 
it.” He spoke like a prophet, he was hanged. But in 1609, 
Francis Tennant, merchant and burgess of Edinburgh, was in¬ 
dicted for writing slanderous words against the king, and he 
was sentenced to be taken to the market cross of Edinburgh 
and his tongue cut out at the root ; then a paper should be 
affixed to his brow, bearing “ that he is convict for forging and 
geveing out of certane vyld and seditious parcellis, detracting 
us and our maist nobill progenitouris ; and thairefter that he 
shall be takyn to the gallous, and hangit, ay quhill he be 


16 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ieid.” By a merciful decree this audacious sinner was yet 
permitted to be hung with his tongue in his head. Another 
remarkable instance concerns an offender who had affixed upon 
one of the Colleges of Oxford some seditious words reflecting 
on the king, after he had attained to the English throne. The 
laws of England did not permit the hunting this delinquent, 
one Thomas Rose, to death ; so the king wrote to his faithful 
Privy Council of Scotland, informing them of the most un¬ 
handsome restrictions placed upon his kingly power, soliciting 
their advice, and as the words had reflected upon the Scottish 
king and the Scottish nation, expressing his wish that the man 
should he tried in Scotland. To which from the Privy Council 
he received a gracious reply, informing him that they would 
receive him, the prisoner, and commit him to the Iron House 
(by which name the cage was called in which desperate prison¬ 
ers were confined previous to their execution), and continuing : 
u Oure opinioun is that he sal be hanged at the Mercatt-Croce 
of Edinburghe, and his heade affixt on one of the Portis. But 
in this we submitt oure selffis to your maiesteis directioun ; 
quhairunto we sail conforme our selffis. ” The poor fellow was 
hung. James was a firm believer in the divinity which doth 
hedge a king ; but it must seem something surprising that, 
however Scotland might bow down graciously to such follies, 
England should yield as compliantly to his will. His reply to 
his first counsellors upon his arrival in England is well known : 
“ Do I mak the Judges ? do I mak the Bishops ? then, Godis 
wauns ! I mak what likes me, law and gospel.’’ Commenting 
upon this, John Forster, in his “ Statesmen of England,” says, 
u He was not an absolute fool, and little more can be said of 
him.” It was the bluff Henry IV. of France who affixed to 
him the soubriquet, with its sly insinuation, that “ undoubtedly 
he was Solomon —the son of David” There was nothing in 
the appearance of this person which carried the presence of 
sovereignty along with the impudent arrogance of his audacious 
will. A contemporary describes him when, at the age of 
thirty-seven, he came to the English throne : “ He was of 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


37 


middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes than in his 
body, yet fat enough ; his eye large, ever rolling after any 
stranger that came in his presence, insomuch as many, for 
shame, left the room as being out of countenance ; his tongue 
was too large for his mouth, and made him drink very un¬ 
comely, as if eating his drink, which came out into his cup ai 
each side of his mouth ; his skin was as soft as taffeta sarsenet, 
which felt so because he never washed his hands, but rubbed 
his fingers’ ends quite slightly with the wet end of a napkin ; 
his legs were very weak, some have thought through some foul 
play in his youth, and the weakness made him ever leaning on 
other people’s shoulders, and his walk was ever circular.” * 
The arbitrary powers assumed by this singular person can only 
have had the effect of rousing the most vehement indignation 
in the minds of the very many who in England, in that day, 
were beginning to realize the foll} r and emptiness of all merely 
titular claims to homage and regard. On a cold October 
morning, in 1619, a great crime was perpetrated, the influence 
of which was to create one of the most bitter and invincible 
enemies to the tactics and policy of the Stuarts, as represented 
either by James or Charles : that fine old English gentleman, 
Sir Walter Raleigh, was brought forth to the scaffold in Palace 
Yard. Perhaps the reader is scarcely able to repress the feel¬ 
ing, even now, of abhorrent indignation that such a miserable 
piece of loathsome corruption as James should have been able 
to order the death of so great and magnanimous a man. It 
was on the 29th of October, w T hen the officers went into his 
room to tell him that all was in readiness for his execution, 
they found him smoking his last pipe and drinking his last cup 
of sack, remarking to those who came to fetch him, that “ it 
was a good liquor, if a man might stay by it.” He said he 
was ready, and so they set forth. Young Sir John Eliot was in 
the crowd, and saw him die, and he never forgave that death ; 
and perhaps, the rather as it was the offering of cowardice to 

* Weldon’s character of King James, quoted in “Memoirs of the 
Court of King James I.,” by Lucy Akin. 


38 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


appease the animosity of Spain. And in future years, when 
Cromwell had to decide whether he should accept an alliance 
with France or Spain, it was probably the death of Raleigh, 
among other motives, which led him to send forth Blake to 
pour his tempests of fire over the Spanish colonies, and to 
avenge the outrages on England so often perpetrated by that 
power, so hateful and abominable to all English tastes and feel¬ 
ing. There seems nothing in the character of James which 
could ever have recommended him to English sympathies, 
whether we regard his dealings with Church or State, whether 
with matters of political principle or finance. It is a singular 
trait of his character that he affected to treat with contempt his 
illustrious predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, and no doubt regarded 
himself as far superior to her in all that constituted the majesty 
of the sovereign, and all that could imply power of dealing with 
statesmen. Many enormities of cruelty, which had fallen into 
hopeful disuse in her reign, were called into existence again. 
He commenced a more severe persecution of the Puritans ; and 
many of his speeches, either to them or about them, exhibit at 
once the low shrewdness and the despotic wilfulness of his 
character. In his speeches to the Puritan champions, when 
they ventured to address his majesty in petition for a revival of 
those meetings which Elizabeth and her bishops had been at 
great pains to suppress, he burst forth into most unkinglike 
anger, and violent and abusive harshness. “ If you aimed at a 
Scotch Presbytery, it agrees as well with monarchy as God and 
devil ; then Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and, 
at their pleasure, censure me and my council.’’ “ My Lords 

the bishops,” he said, putting his hand to his hat, “ I may 
thank you that these men plead thus for my supremacy, they 
think they cannot make their party good against you but by 
appealing unto it. But if once you are out, and they in, I 
know what will become of my supremacy ; for no bishop, no 
king ! I have learned of what cut they have been who, preach¬ 
ing before me since my coming into England, passed over with 
silence my being supreme governor in causes ecclesiastical.” 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


39 


Then turning to Dr. Reynolds, “ Well, Doctor, have you any¬ 
thing more to say ?” “ No more, if it please your majesty.” 

“ If this be all your party hath to say, I will make them con¬ 
form themselves, or else harrie them out of the land, or else do 
worse.” Such was the indecent language this man could in¬ 
dulge to gentlemen who came, with the meekness of subjects, 
to urge upon the king the claims of conscience. It was high 
time that this family should receive some lessons as to the 
limitation of royal prerogative. A/id as over the conscience of 
his subjects, so he also entertained the same ideas as to the 
rights of prerogative over their pockets. He was reckless in 
his extravagance, he would listen to no advice, his embarrass¬ 
ments increased daily ; he did not like parliaments, and with¬ 
out parliaments how could he obtain a parliamentary grant ? 
So he ordered the sheriffs of all the counties to demand of all 
persons of substance, within their respective limits, a free gift 
proportionate to the necessities of the king ; the sheriffs also 
were ordered to take strict cognizance of all persons who 
refused to contribute, and the names of such given in to the 
Privy Council were marked out for perpetual harrying and 
hostility by the Court. He did not gain much by this obnox¬ 
ious and arbitrary scheme—only about £50,000 it is said ; but 
it lost him the confidence and the affection of the entire nation. 
Such are some sufficient lines indicating the character of the 
founder of the line of the Stuarts in England ; in a word, it 
may be said he inherited, in all their coarseness, the worst vices 
of every member of his family. He was not without some 
claim to the pretensions he made to learning, but such learning 
as he possessed exhibited itself in intolerable pedantry, and a 
foolish and offensive parade of what amounted to a little more 
than grammatical precision. His works, such as they are, re¬ 
mind us of those personal pleasantries which Weldon attaches 
to his person. His superstition was dismal, grotesque, and 
dreadful ; and by his wild ideas concerning witchcraft, and the 
possibility of evil intercourse with another world, he aided in 
the extension of dark and morbid ideas, and inaugurated a sue- 


40 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


cession of cruelties which, in their horrible enormities of perse¬ 
cution, equalled almost anything to which poor human nature 
had been subjected in the enormities of the Inquisition, and 
which, alas ! furnished precedents for the continuance of the 
same horrors through future years. On the whole, it is 
scarcely too much to say that the reign of James I. is for the 
most part a dark blot in the history of our country. What¬ 
ever of lustre there may be is derived from the last rays of the 
setting sun of the age of Elizabeth, or the first streaks of dawn, 
promising the morning glory, when the people, wearied and 
worn out by the ignominy of oppression, should stand upon 
their feet prepared to enter on the contest, and struggle for 
rights withheld so long. The whole story of the reign, how¬ 
ever, should be distinctly remembered in order that the origin 
of those ideas may be traced which wrought with such fatal 
and tragic effect upon the character and career of Charles. 
And such was the English monarch and monarchy when Oliver 
Cromwell was a boy. 

The schoolboy days are over, and we may follow young 
Oliver to Cambridge ; he entered, as a fellow-commoner of Sid¬ 
ney Sussex College, on the Feast of the Annunciation, the 23d 
of April, 1616. Carlyle has not failed to notice a remarkable 
event which transpired on this day, and our readers shall have 
it in his own words : “ Curious enough,” he says, “ of all 
days, on this same day, Shakespeare, as his stone monument 
still testifies at Stratford-on-Avon, died : 

“ Obiit Anno Domini 1616. 
uDtatis 53. Die 23 Apr.” 

While Oliver Cromwell was entering himself of Sidney Sussex 
College, William Shakespeare was taking his farewell of this 
world. Oliver’s father had, most likely, come with him ; it is 
but twelve miles from Huntingdon ; you can go and come in a 
day. Oliver’s father saw him write in the album at Cam¬ 
bridge ; at Stratford, Shakespeare’s Ann Hathaway was weep¬ 
ing over his bed. The first world-great thing that remains of 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


41 


English history, the literature of Shakespeare, was ending ; 
the second world-great thing that remains of English history, 
the armed Appeal of Puritanism to the invisible God of heaven 
against many visible devils, on earth and elsewhere, was, so to 
speak, beginning. They have their exits and their entrances. 
And one people in its time plays many parts.” * 

But Cromwell’s study at Cambridge was brief enough. In 
the month of June of the next year he was called to the death¬ 
bed of his father ; the wise, kind counsellor and guide of his 
youth was gone. Now he followed him, as the chief mourner, 
to the chancel of the parish church of St. John’s, and returned 
to the solitary hearth to comfort, as he best might, his surviv¬ 
ing parent. We do not know whether he returned to Cam¬ 
bridge ; but it is probable that, if he returned, it was for a 
very short time ; for he had now to prepare himself as quickly 
as possible for the bustle and reality of active life, as it would 
be necessary that he should take his place as director and head 
of the family. His detractors have been glad to make out a 
case for his ignorance in all matters pertaining to polite and 
elegant literature, and perhaps it could scarcely be expected 
that a youth whose studies closed in his seventeenth year 
should be a finished scholar ; but facts stubbornly contend for 
the furniture and polishment of his understanding. He ever 
had a sincere respect for men of learning, and patronized and 
elevated them, and showed a disposition to honor literature in 
its representatives. He was wont to converse in Latin with 
the ambassadors he received, and, although Bishop Burnet has 
made it an occasion of jest, not one of the most learned of 
them speaks of his Latin with any slight or contempt. 

The monarchs and masters of mankind have seldom been 
able to abide the scrutiny bestowed upon their home and fire¬ 
side. It is the most doubtful of all tests by which to examine 
a man, and especially a great man—a man whom the world has 
claimed, whose time and talents have been placed at the 


* “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,” vol. i. pp. 58, 59. 


42 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


world’s disposal ; a man irritated by contending factions, who 
has been compelled to appraise men, and their motives, and 
frequently to appraise them very lowly. When we follow such 
a man from the camp, and the cabinet, and are able to behold 
a fountain of freshness playing through the home-thoughts of 
the man, to see a perennial greenness about his life, with his 
wife and children, we seem to have applied the last test by 
which we attempt to understand his character. Now, it might 
be thought that Cromwell’s character had but little home-life 
in it. Yet it never changes ; it opens before us in his youth, 
and a beautiful freshness and affection appears to play about it 
until the close of his career. 

There is something like an answer to the charges of his early 
wildness and licentiousness in the fact that he wedded such a 
woman as Elizabeth Boucher, the daughter of a wealthy knight, 
possessed of estates in Essex ; for the consent of such a wife is 
almost a security for the character of her husband. 

Truly affecting is the imaginary spectacle, so easily conjured 
up, of Cromwell and his bride standing by the altar of St. 
Giles’s Church, Cripplegate, the church which was, by and by, 
to receive the body of his friend and secretary, John Milton. 
The soft hand of Elizabeth—the rough, strong hand of Oliver ; 
the hand holding that little one in its grasp was to deal death¬ 
blows on battle-fields ; it was to sign a monarch’s death-war¬ 
rant ; it was to grasp the truncheon of royalty and power ; it 
was to fold the purple of sovereignty over the shoulders ; it was 
to wave back an offered crown ! That frank but strongly-lined 
face, so youthful, yet prematurely thoughtful ; and that kind 
and gentle creature, face to face before him—through what a 
crowd of varying changes shall it sorrow and smile : in a lowly 
homestead, directing the work of maids and churls ; in a palace 
and a court, among nobles and sagacious statesmen ; and again, 
in silence and obscurity ; and shining with the same equable 
lustre through all. Beautiful Elizabeth Boucher! so humble, 
and yet so dignified ! Those who knew her have not neglected 

to inform us that she was an excellent housewife, descending to 

7 © 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


43 


the kitchen with as much propriety as she ascended to her lofty 
station. How she shines in contrast with Henrietta, the queen 
of Charles I. Was she fitted to fill a throne ? Her name must 
not be included in the biographies of the queens of England ; 
and yet, perhaps, not one among the queens consort more truly 
deserves there a chronicle than she. 

A loving and beautiful wife ; and Oliver appears ever to ad¬ 
vantage in connection with all the memories we have of her. 
It is given to us to see something of their home during the 
period of about ten years that Cromwell remained in quietude 
and seclusion. The spectacle of that home, the interior of it, 
is very amusing to Hume and sundry other historians ; for it 
would seem that there was prayer there, and the singing of 
hymns and spiritual songs, and the reading of Scripture, and 
comments, and even preachings, thereon. All this, to a man 
of Hume’s character was most laughable and inexpressibly 
comic. It was all a part of the conduct of our u fanatical 
hypocrite,” who, however, Hume thinks, must have lost very 
much, and “ gone back in worldly matters in consequence.” 
Now, with all deference to Hume’s clearer perceptions, hypo¬ 
crites do not usually like to lose by their religious profession ; 
to gain is a part of their policy and determination. We sus¬ 
pect, however, that Cromwell did not lose. This is mere 
assumption without foundation : he would know, of all men, 
both how to be “ diligent in business and fervent in spirit.” 
And Milton, in his account of him, leads us to altogether an¬ 
other inference when he says, “ Being now arrived to a mature 
and ripe age, all which time he spent as a private person, noted 
for nothing so much as the culture of pure religion and an in¬ 
tegrity of life, he was grown rich at home , and had enlarged his 
hopes, relying upon God and a great soul, in a quiet bosom, 
for any the most exalted times. ” That home at St. Ives the 
late possessor of Cromwell’s house razed to the ground, so that 
not one brick remained standing on another. The man who 
razed Cromwell’s house also razed his own : he died a beggar, 
and his only daughter is now in the workhouse of St. Ives. 


44 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Cromwell married August 22d, 1620. Before him there are 
yet thirty-eight years of life. Of these we shall find that, dur¬ 
ing nearly twenty of them, as Milton has said, “ he nursed his 
great soul in silence, ’ ’ especially during the first ten years spent 
in Huntingdon. 

It is not difficult to glance at the education of the hero. To 
the superintendence of a brewery we may be certain he added 
the superintendence of farms and fields ; and about 1631 he 
removed from Huntingdon, about five miles down the river 
Ouse, to St. Ives, renting there a grazing farm. There he 
probably spent about seven years of his life. If, reader, thou 
hast ever walked, as we have done, by the banks of that river, 
through the lovely little rural villages of Houghton, and Hart¬ 
ford, and Hemingford, and Godmanchester, and the adjacent 
little ruralities, be sure thou hast trodden through some of the 
most remarkable scenery in England—in the world. There he 
was accustomed to walk to and fro. Fancy, immediately at 
our bidding, presents him to us, by the fireside of the old 
gabled farm-house, or in the field attending to his farm affairs, 
mowing, milking, marketing. We may think of Cromwell 
standing in the market with his fellow-tradesmen, and striding 
through those fields, and by those roadsides, and by the course 
of the stream, then sedgy and swampy enough. What 
thoughts came upon him ; for was he not fighting there the 
same battle Luther fought at Erfurth ? He was vexed by fits 
of strange black hypochondria. Dr. Simcot, of Huntingdon, 
“ in shadow of meaning, much meaning expressions,” inti¬ 
mates to us how much he suffered. He was oppressed with 
dreadful consciousness of sin and defect. He groaned in spirit 
like Paul, like later saints—Bunyan, for instance. A flat, level 
country is it about St. Ives, and then probably much more like 
the fen country of Norfolk than the quiet, lovely seclusion its 
neighborhood wears at the present day ; but there, in the ex¬ 
perience of this man, powers of heaven, earth, and hell were 
struggling for masterdom. The stunted willows and sedgy 
watercourses, the flags and reeds, would often echo back the 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


45 


mourning words, “ Oh, wretched man that I am !” What 
conception had he of the course lying before him ? What 
knowledge had he of the intentions of Providence concerning 
him ? Life lay before him all in shadow. For fifteen years he 
appears to have had no other concern than “ to know Christ 
and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His 
sufferings. ” But, then, it would be scarcely other than possi¬ 
ble to hear, from news and scattered report, how one and an¬ 
other of God’s faithful servants were shut up in prison, fined, 
pilloried, and persecuted to banishment and death, without 
additional anguish to the severe torture of the mind crying for 
salvation ; nor would it be possible to hear of successive tyran¬ 
nic exactions and impositions, of libidinousness, intemperance 
at Court and throughout the country, without wonder, too, 

where all this should end. Men called and ordained bv God to 

•/ 

great actions have strong presentiments and mental foreshadow¬ 
ings ; and thus Cromwell would be probably visited by mys¬ 
terious intimations that he was, in some way, to solve the 
mighty riddle of the kingdom’s salvation. But how ? What 
madness to dream it ! How ? 

Nor must we forget that during these years Cromwell had 
many times renewed the joys and anxieties of a father ; indeed, 
all his children were born before he emerged from the fen 
country into public life. They were as follows : 

Robert, his first-born, baptized 13th October, 1621. 

Oliver, baptized 6th of February, 1623. He was killed in 
battle early in the civil war. The Protector alluded to him on 
his death-bed : “ It went to my heart like a dagger ; indeed 
it did.” 

Bridget, baptized 4th of August, 1624. She was married to 
Ireton, and after Ireton’s death to Fleetwood ; and died at 
Stoke Newington, near London, 1681. 

Richard, born 4th of October, 1626. Him Carlyle calls “ a 
poor idle triviality. ’ ’ 

Henry, baptized 20th July, 1628. 

Elizabeth, baptized 2d July, 1629. 


46 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


All the above children were born at Huntingdon ; the fol¬ 
lowing at St. Ives and Ely : 

James, baptized 8th January, 1631 ; died next day. 

Mary, baptized at Huntingdon, 3d February, 1636. 

Francis, baptized at Ely, 6th December, 1638. “ Preaching 

there, praying there, he passed his days solacing persecuted 
ministers, and sighing in the bitterness of his soul.” 

In all, five sons and four daughters ; of whom three sons, 
and all the daughters, came to maturity at Ely ; for about 1638 
Cromwell, probably, removed to Ely. His uncle, Sir Thomas, 
resided there. His mother’s relatives—those of them who were 
left—were there ; and now his mother herself removed there, 
probably with the idea of there terminating her days in the 
presence of first impressions and associations. The time draws 
nigh for Oliver to leave his silence, his lonely wanderings to 
and fro, his plannings, and his doubtings. The storm is up in 
England, and Oliver has become a marked man ; he probably 
knows that he will have to take a prominent part in the affairs 
of the kingdom. Halt we awhile to reflect on this. This ob¬ 
scure man, lone English farmer, untitled, unwealthy, no grace 
of manner to introduce himself, ungainly in speech and in 
action, unskilled in war, unused to the arts of courts and the 
cabals of senates and legislators—this man whose life had 
passed altogether with farmers and religious-minded men—was, 
at almost a bound, to leap to the highest place in the people’s 
army, grasping the baton of the marshal. This man was to 
strike the successful blows on the field, shivering to pieces the 
kingly power in the land—himself was to assume the truncheon 
of the Dictator ; was to sketch the outline of laws, of home 
and foreign policy, which all succeeding legislators were to at¬ 
tempt to embody and imitate ; was to wring concessions to his 
power from the most haughty monarchies of ancient feudal 
Europe, and to bear up, in arms, England, fast dwindling into 
contempt, to the very foremost place among the nations ; was 
to produce throughout the world homage to the Protestant re¬ 
ligion, making before his name the fame and terror of Gus- 


ANCESTRY, FAMILY, AND EARLY DAYS. 


47 


tavus, of Henry IY., of Zisca, to dwindle and look pale. And 
this with no prestige of birth or education. Is it too much, 
then, to call him the most royal actor England, if not the 
world, has produced ? 

Notice, also, that when he was at Cambridge he won some 
money at gambling : £20, £50, £100. All these sums now 
were returned as moneys upon no principle his own. Here, 
too, is a letter of this Huntingdon time, just before the busy 
world called him away, giving a glimpse of the man : 

ii To my beloved cousin, Mrs. St. John, at William Masham, 
his house, called Otes , in Essex.—Present these. 

“ Ely, 13th October, 1638. 

“ Dear Cousin,— 

“ I thankfully acknowledge your love in your kind remem¬ 
brance of me upon this opportunity. Alas ! you too highly 
prize my lines and my company. I may be ashamed to own 
your expressions, considering how unprofitable I am, and the 
mean improvement of my talent. 

‘ 1 Yet to honor my God by declaring what He hath done for 
my soul, in this I am confident, and I will be so. Truly, then, 
this I find, that He giveth springs in a dry, barren wilderness, 
where no water is. I live, you know where—in Meshec, which 
they say means prolonging —in Kedar, which signifies black¬ 
ness ,* yet the Lord forsaketh me not. Though He do pro¬ 
long, yet He will, I trust, bring me to His tabernacle, to His 
resting-place. My soul is with the congregation of the first¬ 
born ; my body rests in hope ; and if here I may honor my 
God, either by doing or by suffering, I shall be most glad. 

“ Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put himself 
forth in the cause of God than I. I have had plentiful wages 
beforehand ; and I am sure I shall never earn the least mite. 
The Lord accept me in His Son, and give me to walk in the 
light, as He is the light ! He it is that enlighteneth our black¬ 
ness, our darkness. I dare not say He hideth His face from 
me. He giveth me to see light in His light. One beam in a 


48 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


dark place hath exceeding much refreshment in it. Blessed be 
His name for shining upon so dark a heart as mine ! You 
know what my manner of life hath been. Oh, I lived in, and 
loved darkness, and hated light ! I was a chief, the chief of 
sinners. This is true ; I hated godliness, yet God had mercy 
on me. Oh, the richness of His mercy ! Praise Him for me 
—pray for me, that He who hath begun a good work would 
perfect it in the day of Christ. ’ ’ 

Notice, also, that those latest years of James and first years 
of Charles were the period when the cruel persecution proceed¬ 
ing in England drove the first emigrants away into the Ameri¬ 
can wilderness, there to found the old Massachusetts Colony ; 
they left their homes and country, willing to encounter the pri¬ 
vations and dangers of the distant wilderness, hoping there to 
find a rest and refuge for outraged religion and humanity. 
Those were the days commemorated by the Plymouth Rock— 
the first settlers in Salem, and the growth of Lynn. We refer 
to this especially, because tradition says that on the 1st of May 
1638, eight ships, bound for New England, and filled with 
Puritan families, were arrested and interrupted in the Thames 
by an order from the king, and that among their passengers in 
one of those vessels were Pym, Hampden, Cromwell, and 
Hazelrig. Mr. John Forster doubts this, but cannot disprove 
it. Our own impression is that these master patriots were 
probably on board ; that they did not intend to desert their 
country, in whose existence and future they had too large an 
interest, but that they were on a voyage of discovery, partly to 
sympathize with the exiles, and partly to obtain some knowl¬ 
edge for future possibilities. The rumor seems to be too ex¬ 
tended to be altogether unfounded. 


CHAPTER III. 


Cromwell’s contemporaries : sir john eliot. 

We are desirous to set before our readers, not only the 
character of Cromwell himself, but of those contemporaries 
who also wrought out with him the work of national salvation ; 
among these, and especially those who may be termed the 
great heralds and precursors of what may be called more 
strictly the Cromwell period, no name is more eminent than 
that of John Eliot. He is really the-Elijah of the Revolution, 
and his was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, “ Pre¬ 
pare ye the way.” His bold, courageous, and ardent spirit 
went before, and he anticipated the great impeachments of 
Pym and the great victories of Cromwell. It is only recently 
that he has been restored to the high place in popular regard 
and memory, from whence he had passed almost into obscurity, 
until Mr. John Forster first published his brief life, more than 
thirty years since, in his “ Statesmen of the Commonwealth,” 
and afterward expanded the sketch into the + vvo handsome vol¬ 
umes which now so pleasantly embalm the name and memory, 
the words and works and sufferings, we may add, the martyr¬ 
dom, of John Eliot. He was born in 1590, a Cornishman, but 
on the banks of the Tamar, in the town of St. Germains, 
which, however, does not appear to have been more than a 
poor little straggling village of fishermen. Travelling on the 
Continent, he made the acquaintance of the Duke of Bucking¬ 
ham, the favorite of James I. Perhaps the acquaintance was 
not very intimate or very deep ; it seems likely, however, 
that to it Eliot owed his position of Vice-Admiral of Devon. 
When, however, Eliot entered into public life, the opinions and 
careers of the two men were so divergent, that it is probable 
that, by his great impeachment of the Duke, Eliot would have 


50 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


taken away his head had not Felton’s lance anticipated the 
headsman’s stroke. 

Eliot entered Parliament in his twenty-fourth year as mem¬ 
ber for the borough of St. Germains, and he found himself in 
company with some of the men whose names were to be allied 
with his own in working out the English redemption. John 
Hampden, three or four years younger than Eliot, had not yet 
finished his studies in the Inner Temple ; but there were Pym, 
Philips, Sir Edward Joel, Sir Edward Sands, and Whitelock, 
and, amphibiously bowing about, but scarcely giving a hint of 
the vast space he was to fill by his power in the future, Sir 
Thomas Wentworth, soon afterward created Earl of Strafford. 
Buckingham was the favorite—the most unprincipled of favor¬ 
ites, but Lord High Admiral of England. And here we are 
most likely to discover the cause of Eliot’s elevation to the 
Vice-Admiralty of Devon. The Duke, probably, soon found 
that he had made a mistake in the appointment of Eliot to this 
post. The western coast was ravaged by pirates, and Eliot 
does not appear to have understood that it was quite possible 
for, perhaps almost expected that, the admiral and the pirate, 
especially if he were an English pirate, should understand each 
other. Not only Turkish rovers swept round our seas, but 
wild, lawless, dissolute Englishmen, bold bravadoes capable of 
every crime, who, when they were wearied and foiled in their 
adventures upon Spanish dollars and doubloons, varied the 
pleasantry of their occupation by more homely and less toil¬ 
some endeavors, seizing our own merchant ships, surprising and 
pouncing upon villages and small towns along the coast, and, 
in innumerable ways, creating a fear and a dread on the land 
and on the sea. What seems most marvellous to us now, is 
that such men should be frequently shielded and patronized by 
Government, or Government favorites, for their own ends and 
purposes ! 

This was the case, just then, with one who had obtained the 
most infamous distinction, Captain John Nutt, one of the most 
daring sea-devils of that lawless time. He was an untakable 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


51 


man, and he had several pirate ships. He commenced his 
career as gunner of a vessel in Dartmouth harbor bound for the 
Newfoundland seas. Coming to Newfoundland, he collected a 
crew of pleasant fellows like himself ; they seized a French 
ship, also a large Plymouth ship, then a Flemish ship, and, 
with these gay rovers, he played off his depredations on the 
fishing craft of the Newfoundland seas, and came back, too 
strong for capture, to the western coasts of England. Arrived 
there, this worthy played off new devilries : he tempted men 
from the king’s service by the promises of higher wages, and 
—what alas ! might easily be promised in those dreary days, 
more certain payment ; he hung about Torbay, laughed at 
threats, scoffed at promises of pardon, although more than one 
offer had been made conditionally. The whole western coun¬ 
try was in a state of dread, and municipalities poured their 
entreaties upon the council and upon Eliot in his office of Vice- 
Admiral. What did it all avail ? Capture seemed a mere 
dream, a hopeless thing. Sometimes he touched the shore, and, 
as was the wont with those bold fellows, when he did so, he was 
fond of exhibiting himself in the dress of the men he had plun¬ 
dered. The mind of Eliot was moved at these things. Sir 
George Calvert, a great Court favorite, had interests in New¬ 
foundland ; to him Nutt was necessary, and he appears to have 
obtained pardons for the pirate. Copies of the pardons were 
issued to Eliot—it was his design to make the pardons useless ; 
he was bound on capturing the pirate, but the pirate was too 
wary for the admiral. At last he had recourse to negotiation ; 
but even while the negotiation for submission was in progress, 
Nutt made it still further unavailing by the capture of a rich 
Colchester ship with a cargo of sugar and timber. Eliot imme¬ 
diately insisted that this should be given up ; the daring pirate 
was indignant at the command ; and now Eliot became yet 
more crafty. But how remarkable is all this as illustrating the 
state of the times, that only the admiral should have been in 
earnest to take the man, and he had to represent to the Gov¬ 
ernment how ill-deserved pardon and grace to such a man 


52 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


would be ; that during the period of three months since the par¬ 
don had been issued, this lively specimen of an ancient British 
sailor had occupied his time in committing depredations and 
spoils on the coast, in one week had taken ten or twelve ships, 
and while the pardon was in negotiation, had seized the Col¬ 
chester brig with a freightage of J64000 ! In the end, how¬ 
ever, Eliot did manage to get possession of him. He seized 
Nutt’s ship, took down her sails, and put a guard on board 
her, and then wrote to the Council, waiting to hear in what 
way he was to deal with the pirate and the men. The pirate 
was more powerful than the admiral. Buccaneers, and espe¬ 
cially such a buccaneer as Nutt—an immensely wealthy man, a 
daring, resolute, and serviceable man—had friends at Court, 
especially, as we have seen, a friend in Calvert. It is marvel¬ 
lous to relate, that Nutt was permitted to become the accuser 
of the admiral—the admiral who had been first congratulated 
by Conway, the Secretary of State, for his daring and magnani¬ 
mous conduct, and who had been told by letter that he was to 
receive the king’s thanks and to kiss the king’s hand in 
acknowledgment of his rescue of the western counties and seas 
from Nutt’s piracy, plunder, and murder. That admiral, our 
readers will understand, for that very transaction of seizing that 
pirate, the month following, lay in the Marshalsea prison upon 
some frivolous pretences ; while the happy and blithe-hearted 
pirate and plunderer stepped forth with a free and uncondi¬ 
tional pardon, to renew his pleasant adventures on the seas. 
Of course there had to seem some pretext of law for this ; but 
law, in the person of the Chief Justice, Sir Henry Marten, soon 
shrivelled up all these pretexts. Sir John Eliot, indeed, did 
escape from prison and from all punishment, but not with such 
flying colors as Nutt, “that unlucky fellow, Captain Nutt,” 
as Sir George Calvert called him, poor penitent pirate ! What¬ 
ever Nutt said, what protestations he made, we know not ; a 
shaggy black dog like that making a clean breast of it is a 
queer picture to us. “ This poor man,” says Sir George, “ is 
able to do the king service if he be employed, and I do assure 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR d OHN ELIOT. 


53 


myself he doth so detest his former course of life, he will never 
enter on it again.” So the Vice-Admiral of Devon was 
weighed in the scales against a freebooter of the seas, and 
found wanting ! The whole man seems to come out in the in¬ 
dignant truthfulness running through Sir John’s letter. Nay, 
the admiral was to pay a fine of £100 to the pirate for his ship 
and goods seized ; but here the admiral was tough. One of 
the officers writes to their lordships of the Government, while 
Sir John continues in prison : “ So may it please your lord- 
ships, Sir John won’t pay ; so that your lordships’ order is 
very much slighted, and nothing at all regarded.” He 
escaped from prison, however, as the pirate escaped—by royal 
favor and State protection—from the gallows Eliot had erected 
for him. 

This is not the last we hear of Mr. Nutt. That penitent 
person achieved still greater fame than before on the seas, and 
became, say the records, the most incomparable nuisance in 
all his majesty’s dominions. Nothing on the seas was safe 
from him. At last, Captain Plumleigh was sent to the Irish 
seas to seek him and to take him. Nutt met the captain with 
twenty-seven Turks, gave the captain chase, and, had he not 
fled into harbor, would have sunk his ship. This encouraged 
the penitent pirate to still further magnanimities ; he struck at 
the very highest game, and when Lord Wentworth sent over to 
Ireland—to which country he was himself going as the Lord- 
Lieutenant—a ship full of luggage, furniture, wardrobe, plate, 
etc., essential to his station, Nutt seized the whole. Went¬ 
worth was the intimate friend and counsellor of the king, and 
also the intimate friend of that Sir George Calvert who had 
saved Nutt’s bull-neck from its legitimate twisting some years 
before ; but, as we do not read that Nutt made restitution 
when these little particulars were discovered, perhaps he did 
not the less enjoy his prize. We believe he reached a happy 
and honored old age, and died comfortably, as a man deserved 
to do who availed himself of the facilities afforded by those times 
when 44 every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” 


54 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


This exercise of prerogative with which Eliot came immedi¬ 
ately into collision, would not be likely to incline him to look 
patiently upon the successive attempts of royal rapacity. 

It was through Sir John Eliot, very eminently, that the 
Commons and the Stuarts came at last to their great rupture. 
James I. heartily desired alliance with Spain by the marriage 
of the Prince of Wales with the Infanta, and when the negoti¬ 
ations were broken off, the nation manifested its hearty sympa¬ 
thy by a great outburst of joy. Then came the contest with 
the stubborn old king upon the privilege of debate in Parlia¬ 
ment. The king said the Parliament held their liberties by 
toleration, not by right ; and when the House recorded its very 
different conviction in a resolution on its journals, the imbecile 
old king came up from Theobald’s in a passion, got together a 
privy council, and six of the judges, sent for the Commons’ 
journal, and even dared to tear out the registry. He then in¬ 
stantly dissolved the House by proclamation, and wound up the 
arduous labors of the day by tumbling off his horse into the 
New River. It was winter—December weather—the ice broke, 
so that nothing but his boots were seen, which mishap was a 
pretty diagram of that representative Stuart. Then came the 
coquetting with popery, and the disastrous marriage of the 
Prince of Wales with Henrietta Maria. Then also came 
James’s last Parliament of 1623-4, in which Eliot was member 
for Newport. The intense Protestantism of the country longed 
to interfere to help the Protestants of the Continent, and espe¬ 
cially to be at war with Spain. “Are we indeed poor?” 
asked Eliot, about this time in a memorable debate in the 
House. “Be it so ; Spain is rich. We will make that our 
Indies. Break with her, and we shall break with our necessi¬ 
ties also.” Supplies were voted to meet the necessities of the 
coast-guard defence, as well as for warlike equipments. Then 
bonfires blazed to the very doors of the Spanish embassy, and 
all the world in the city ran into debt for fagots and gallons 
of wine. “ The Spaniards,” said aristocratic Wentworth, 
afterward Strafford, “ were insulted, to the great joy of all the 



KING CHARLES THE FIRST. 




























































































. 












HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


55 


cobblers and other bigots and zealous brethren of the town.” 
Still went on the game of imposition by prerogative. Mis¬ 
chievous monopolies sprang into existence. Large traders were 
beggared by the actions of the Government, and the merchant 
shipping of the country had fallen away to an alarming extent. 
Many of the exports most in demand had been diminished more 
than half. The Government in truth plundered its subjects 
and robbed itself. 

The old king died, and his death was followed by a sense of 
relief and hope. But the new reign brought no relief, and the 
hope was soon dissipated. At this time there existed in England 
many of the same fearful indications which were the preludes of 
the subsequent French Revolution ; while the people were 
starving beneath the weight of oppression and forced loans, so 
that for the first twelve years of the reign of Charles I. scarcely 
any one dared to call his property his own, and a morning never 
rose upon an English family which was not dreaded as the pos¬ 
sible herald of some new oppression, it is quite curious, and 
moves to a natural indignation, to notice the enormous sums 
expended by the king on diamonds, jewels, and chains of gold, 
either for himself or for personal presents. We read of 
£10,400 paid to one William Rogers, a goldsmith ; we read of 
£10,000 paid to Philip Jacobson, a jeweller, for a ring, etc. ; 
we read of £2000 paid to Henry Garway, Esq., for one large 
thick table diamond ; we read of £8000 paid to Sir Manrill 
Abbott for a diamond set in a collar of gold ; and in fact, there 
lie before us a long catalogue of similar items, indicating the 
reckless extravagance of the king. It is almost the anticipa¬ 
tion of the story of the diamond necklace with natural differ¬ 
ences ; and meantime the people were crushed down beneath 
cruel exactions to satisfy the cost of these playthings. The 
great guide of State, Buckingham, continued the game, and 
soon was manifested the same arbitrary misrule. The Parlia¬ 
ment pursued its way, determined from session to session to 
maintain its strength and its integrity. Meantime, early in the 
reign, the laws against Puritan Dissent began to be pressed 


56 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


with eager severity, and Laud was active in his bad business of 
superstitious bigotry. Looking back upon these times, they 
seem sad, black, and desolate ; the plague ravaged the metrop¬ 
olis, the deaths averaging about five thousand a week. The 
city was empty, grass was growing in the street ; and Lily, the 
astrologer, going to prayers to St. Antholin’s, in Watling 
Street, from a house over the Strand Bridge, between six and 
seven in a summer morning of the month of July, testifies that 
so few people were then alive, and the streets so unfrequented, 
he met only three persons in the way. And then came the 
debate on the Tonnage and Poundage Bill, and the king and 
Buckingham pursued their bad path. Sir Humphrey May, the 
Chancellor, sought the mediation of the popular and powerful 
member, Sir John Eliot, to attempt to bring the Duke of 
Buckingham to a sense of reason. It was a strange interview. 
He came to York House, and found the duke with the duchess 
yet in bed ; but notice having been given of his coming, the 
duchess rose and withdrew to her cabinet, and he was let in. 
“ Ourselves,” says Mr. Forster, “ admitted also to this strange 
interview, the curtain of the past is uplifted for us at a critical 
time.” 

“ Judging the present moment of time by what we now 
know to have followed it, will it be too much to say that if 
Eliot could have prevailed with Buckingham, and if the result 
had been that better understanding between the Parliament and 
the Court which he desired to establish, the course of English 
history might have been changed. To Charles’s quarrel with 
his first Parliament, Clarendon ascribes all the troubles of his 
reign ; and now the good or the ill understanding, publicly, is 
to date from this day. What privately is to flow from its two 
hours’ conference, not only to the men sitting in that bed¬ 
chamber of York House, but to the royal master whom they 
would both have served, will not have exhausted itself for 
many years. It will not have closed when Buckingham’s 
wretched death has come. When Eliot sinks beneath the 
king’s unrelenting persecution of his favorite’s fiercest assailant, 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


57 


it will be working still. Not until the harsh persecution of 
Eliot is remembered and put forth in later years to justify the 
harshness dealt out to an imprisoned king, will the cycle of 
wrong and retribution be complete that this day begins.” 

Eliot used what argument he could, and he has told his own 
story of the interview, with the tremendous discovery of Buck¬ 
ingham listening impatiently, and then letting fall a hasty 
word, so that the whole truth flashed upon him that the suc¬ 
cess of the Tonnage and Poundage Bill was not so much de¬ 
sired as reasonable ground for quarrel. “ The proposition 
must proceed without consideration of success, wherein was 
lodged this project merelie to be denied.” “ For the pres¬ 
ent,” Eliot concludes, “ this observation of Buckingham gave 
that gentleman [himself ] some wonder with astonishment ; 
who with the seals of privacie closed up those passages in 
silence ; yet thereon grounded his observations for the future, 
that noe respect of persons made him [Eliot] desert his coun- 
trie.” 

During the recess of 1625, Eliot travelled to the West. As 
he passed along, news reached him of the cruel mischief in¬ 
flicted by Turkish pirates, who, from under forts and castles 
left helpless and unguarded, sprung on English ships. The 
western sea, with all the villages lining its coasts, was entirely 
at their mercy ; all trade was interrupted, and the number of 
Christians captured to be sold into slavery during the outrages 
of three months could not be less than twelve hundred. There 
were wailings for fathers and sons, for brothers, for husbands 
and wives. Meantime, the ships of the nation lay in harbor, 
men and provisions on board, and Government careless of the 
inflictions on its subjects. Eliot also first became acquainted 
with the treason meditated against the Protestants of Rochelle, 
for which the sums granted by Parliament for the defence of 
Protestant interests were diverted, to crush them. It is a story 
which covers the Government of Charles I. with ignominy, and 
renews feelings of bitter execration ; while yet it is one of the 
proudest stories of English magnanimity. It scarcely needs to 


58 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


recite that tale, which must be fresh in the recollections of all 
who are proud of their country. The French Government was 
maintaining a struggle against the Huguenots of Rochelle. 
They were very unequal to the conflict, but they were brave 
and determined. The free town of Rochelle had become the 
stronghold G f Protestantism, and Richelieu determined to 
crush it. He was scarcely equal to the work ; the place was 
strong and important—it was, in fact, a kind of little republi¬ 
can Hanse town. A clause in the marriage treaty of France 
with England, on account of Charles and Henrietta Maria, pro¬ 
vided that eight ships—men-of-war—should be placed by Eng¬ 
land at the disposal of France when claimed. It was a rather 
prompt demand, but a lucky thought induced Richelieu to ask 
for them now to serve his purpose upon Rochelle. Upon this, 
Buckingham and the king, entirely concealing their purpose 
from the Council, pressed seven first-rate merchantmen, and 
sent them to sea under the command of Captain Pennington, 
who had hoisted his flag on board the Vanguard man-of-war. 

Neither Pennington nor any of the captains knew their desti¬ 
nation ; they expected they were to act against Genoa, or 
against Italy. The thing was far enough from their thoughts 
that they were to act against Protestantism, and there was a 
specific understanding that the ships promised were not to 
engage in the civil wars of the French. Arrived in the Downs, 
Pennington was scandalized to find that, by an order from the 
Admiralty, he was placed beneath the command of the French 
ambassador, who was to exercise power over the whole fleet. 
When Pennington discovered the deceit practised upon him, 
and suspected that he was to be used against the Rochellois, he 
wrote in piteous terms to the ministers known to have influence 
with Buckingham, imploring mediation with the king and sal¬ 
vation from the disgrace. Meantime, the men on board the 
Vanguard and the other ships had discovered their destination 
and refused to fight against their brother Protestants. They 
signed a round-robin, and placed it, where they knew it would 
meet their commander’s eye, between the leaves of his Bible. 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


59 


The brave and pious sailor waded but a short time after receiv¬ 
ing it ; he brought back all his ships to the English coast. 
Arrived there, he was deceived again by the assurance that 
there was to be peace between the King of France and the 
Huguenots ; so he once more sailed for the Dieppe Roads, 
Conway, the Secretary, too, having informed Pennington, from 
Buckingham, that the command of the fleet was to be alto¬ 
gether the French king’s, and Pennington was, according to 
his majesty’s express pleasure, to obey entirely the command 
of the Admiral of France. Again all these pretences proved 
to be without foundation. The simple facts cannot be im¬ 
peached. There is extant a letter of Buckingham, from Paris, 
to Charles, in which he says, “ The peace with them of this 
religion depends upon the success of the fleet they [Richelieu] 
had from your majesty and the Low Countries.” All attempts 
are vain to screen the minister and the king. There was a 
scheme first to get the fleet into a French harbor, and the false 
instructions to Pennington were the commencement. Penning¬ 
ton wrote direct to Buckingham, imploring his Grace to recall 
him, adding that he would rather put his life at the king’s 
mercy at home, than go forward in the business, and that he 
rather desired to suffer in person than to suffer dishonor. The 
answer to this letter was a peremptory refusal of his prayer. 
The Duke marvelled that he, a captain, should, upon the in¬ 
stance of his obedience being required, ask leave to withdraw ! 
Still he was told not to fear the issue, for news of peace be¬ 
tween the French king and his subjects was not far off. Pen¬ 
nington once more sailed, but he reached the Dieppe Roads 
alone ; the merchant captains refused to follow him ! But as 
yet Government officials had no conception of the intense relig¬ 
ious feelings, the passionate, Protestant zeal of the common 
people of England. The king and the chief minister were 
insensible to it, and their insensibility proved their ruin. 
There was soon a religious mutiny on board the Vanguard ; 
the crew could not believe the ship was to be delivered up to 
the French, and it was known that it would be employed 


60 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


against the Huguenots. Pennington declared to the Secretary, 
Nicholas, that his men were in such a rage that they swore 
nothing should prevent their carrying away the ship from the 
roads, and so indeed news came that the Vanguard was under 
sail. The ship left the roads in tempestuous weather, and 
returned to the Downs. From the English coast Pennington 
makes a manly and touching appeal : he relates what had 
passed in the roads at Dieppe ; his crew had returned without 
acquainting him—but he frankly adds that he knew it, and 
had connived at it, otherwise they would never have done it ; 
and he declares that he had rather live on bread and water for 
the rest of his days than be an actor in that business. The old 
artifices were again employed. Peace was to be made with the 
Protestants, and war declared with Spain and Milan. “ The 
king,” Pennington was told, “ was extremely offended with 
him,” and if he desired to make his peace, he must obey 
punctually. Then the royal warrant followed, formally requir¬ 
ing Pennington to put his ship, the Vanguard, and all the other 
seven ships, with their equipage, artillery, and ammunition, 
into the service of his dear brother, the “ most Christian 
king” ; and in case of the refusal on the part of crews, 
commanding him and the others to use all means possible to 
compel obedience, “ even to the sinking of the ships.” “ See 
you fail not,” are the closing words of this decisive document, 
“ as you will answer to the contrary at your utmost peril.” 

For the third time Pennington took his Vanguard into the 
French harbor, and with him went, with desperate reluctance, 
the seven merchant ships. One captain, Sir Fernando Gorges, 
broke through and returned, learning that the destination of the 
fleet was Rochelle. Pennington and the rest doggedly obeyed 
the king’s warrant, and delivered up the ships and their stores 
without their crews , Pennington declaring that he would rather 
be hanged in England for disobedience, than fight himself or 
see his seamen fight against their brother Protestants of France. 
He quietly looked on while his crews deserted ; leaving every 
ship, including his own, to be manned by Frenchmen, and 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


61 


came back to set himself right with his countrymen. The 
Vanguard hastened away to Rochelle, and her cannons, no 
longer manned by English crews, accomplished the object of 
the “ martyr king” and “ Defender of the Protestant Faith !” 
—“ opening fire against Rochelle, and mowing down the 
Huguenots like grass.” 

These were the sailors of those days, and this was the Eng¬ 
lish Government of those days. Surely there was need of 
men like Eliot to attempt to mend this wrong doing ! Thus 
the money voted in subsidies by the brave English House of 
Commons to defend Protestantism in Europe, was squandered 
in the treacherous attempt to crush it. Pennington, upon his 
arrival in England, sent, from his place of concealment, his 
papers to Eliot, that he might have at once the means of vindi¬ 
cating him to Parliament, which vindication would also be the 
impeachment of the Government. After a brief recess, the 
House reassembled, burdened with many grave causes of grief. 
Puritans were being cruelly persecuted, Jesuits were being par¬ 
doned and set at liberty, and the state of the people every¬ 
where demanded immediate consideration. Prerogative was 
dancing a perfect maniac dance through the country ; the dues 
of tonnage and poundage were actually in the course of levy 
and collection without any grant from Parliament, and the par¬ 
ties of the Court and the people became more decided and dis¬ 
tinct. The demerits and defects of Buckingham, now espe¬ 
cially, became daily more obvious, and roused in the minds of 
all noble Englishmen growing indignation. We have already 
spoken of the ascent of this man to power—it is unlike any¬ 
thing in our history : he simply had the grace and beauty of a 
woman, without a woman’s prescience and tact. He delighted 
in dependants and suitors, never got beyond the Court, and 
could not understand the people. He could not comprehend 
that the reign of favorites was passed, and the reign of states¬ 
men begun ; and that, as Eliot says, ” the old genius of the 
kingdom is reawakening.” Having very little of the states¬ 
man himself, he seems to have looked with covetous eye and 


62 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


hand on the gains of the buccaneer, while utterly unpossessed 
of the buccaneer’s grasp and strength. He was fond of a show 
of mystery, and kept it up, as Eliot says, “ with scarce a 
covering for his ears, supposing his whole body under 
shadow.” The time was come when his wild outrages on 
English liberty would be tolerated no longer. In speaking of 
this Parliament, Phillipps, one of its most accomplished ora¬ 
tors, exclaimed : 

“ England is the last monarchy that yet retains her liberties. 
Let them not perish now. Let not posterity complain that we 
have done for them worse than our fathers did for us. Their 
precedents are the safest steps we tread in. Let us not now 
forsake them, lest their fortunes forsake us. Wisdom and 
counsel made them happy, and the like causes now will have 
for us the like effects.” 

The whole House was, to quote the words of Milton, “ a 
grand shop of war anvils and hammers kept incessantly 
working to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed 
justice in defence of beleaguered truth ; and if the House were 
resolute to maintain its rights, not less obstinate was the king. 
Frequent were his messages to stay votes and censures, and this 
very Parliament was in this way dissolved. Its last debate was 
broken in upon while it was engaged in drawing up a paper 
reminding the king of his and the kingdom’s hazards—a 
respectful, obedient, and loyal paper, warning him of the dan¬ 
ger of holding counsel with those who would poison his ear 
against it. While the Chairman was reading it, and the House 
sitting in committee, the Black Rod was heard at the door. 
The Speaker rose to resume his chair, and admit the royal mes¬ 
senger. There was a general shout, “ No ! no !” Other 
members rose to prevent him. The protest was put to the 
vote, and passed, and hastened to the king, who immediately 
dissolved the House. These were daring doings for a young 
king not yet crowned ; but he had Laud by his side, to eke 
out the imbecility of Buckingham. Parliament was dissolved. 
During the period of its dissolution, Eliot was active in the 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


63 


work of his vice-admiralty, engaged in the fitting out and sail¬ 
ing of the fleet for the Cadiz expedition. The levying of ton¬ 
nage and poundage still went on, although the assent had been 
refused to the Bill which would have made the levying legal ; 
and Eliot’s father-in-law was pressed upon with special hard¬ 
ness to meet the demands of one of the Privy Seals, a danger¬ 
ous application of an old expedient. We cannot give the whole 
circumstances connected with the St. Peter, of Newhaven. 
We have described Buckingham as a kind of courtly bucca¬ 
neer ; he desired b} 7 his agents to seize money and good.- 
almost anywhere and anyhow. He laid a hand of rapacity on 
the men of property at home, and he seized, without any legal 
expedient, rich property on the sea. The St. Peter, of New¬ 
haven, was a French ship, with a cargo of extraordinary value, 
and it was seized by the Lord High Admiral under the pretence 
of her carrying Spanish goods, her cargo being made the ob¬ 
ject of plunder and extortion. It created an immense excite¬ 
ment, for of course France instantly made sharp reprisals. 
The ships of English merchants were seized in French ports. 
Eliot, upon the meeting of Parliament, took a very strong and 
decided position upon this enormous transaction, denouncing 
not only the wickedness but the impolicy of making an enemy 
of a great nation, and the facts he brought out in successive 
examinations were startling. The St. Peter contained silver, 
gold, jewels to the value of £40,000 sterling, and, without 
condemnation from any judge or court, was stripped and car¬ 
ried up to the Tower. The Duke’s conduct was not more 
remarkable in the exhibition of this one great extortion than 
were the minor extortions of his subordinates. Upon the final 
decision of the court in favor of the ship, by which it was 
ordered to be carried back and legally discharged, the favorite 
not only dared to detain it in opposition to express verdict, but 
it was proved that his subordinates had attempted to sell to 
some of the Frenchmen who were losers in the vessel their in¬ 
terest—as much as £80 for £5. It was at the same time, too, 
that the Duke won a perfect holocaust of obloquy for the fail- 


64 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


♦ 

ure of the great Cadiz expedition ; in plain words, it was only 
an attempt to fill the king’s coffers by a piratical raid on the 
wealth of Spain. The expedition consisted of ninety sail, 
large and small ships, five thousand seamen and ten thousand 
soldiers. The fleet sailed, but it failed, and there fell upon 
the towns of the West of England a great disaster. Hundreds 
of seamen and soldiers landed at Plymouth in a dying state, 
and a thousand were said to have perished at sea before they 
entered the harbor. For months the appalling extent of the 
disaster showed itself in every road and town on the western 
coast ; above all in the streets of Plymouth, as the ships came 
straggling back. 

There was one living in the West at that time, u Bottomless 
Bagge,” Sir James Bagge, and it is to no other than Arch¬ 
bishop Laud that he must be thankful for his characteristic 
patronymic. Did our space permit, we should like to devote a 
page or two to the development of the character of this worthy. 
He was Buckingham’s choice, and a most worthy agent for the 
West ; he had a profound genius for servilities, meannesses, 
and rascalities of every kind ; he was a man who could lick the 
blacking off a great man’s boots, and swear that it was better 
than port wine ; it was he who offered the £5 to the French¬ 
men, for their £80. We see in him the cur constantly snap¬ 
ping round about the heels of Eliot, and always with the same 
sinuous sanctity—his fragrant name is an ointment poured 
forth, with a large flavoring of asafcetida ; a truculent rascal, a 
genuine Barnacle, a great high-priest of the Circumlocution 
Office, embodying in himself a premature aptitude of chicane 
and red tape, which might make him a study even in these 
modern days. The rascal does not seem to have got the worst 
of it. Eliot was often imprisoned ; Coke, Phillipps, and other 
brave men, as we know, suffered, and that joyfully, the spoil¬ 
ing of their goods and their persons ; but “ Bottomless 
Bagge,” with an admirable eel-like slipperiness, always found 
himself on some comfortable couch of glittering mud. The 
character of the man is well portrayed in Mr. Forster’s “ Life 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


65 


of Eliot ” : his peculations, his servilities, his smiling face be¬ 
fore, his stealthy hand behind the curtain, his hints about his 
own family, his personal meritorious demerits. He seems to 
have feathered himself well from the failing of the Cadiz expe¬ 
dition : he victualled the ships, and one contemporary speaks 
of his conduct in that matter as worthy of the halter. But, 
bad as Bagge was, it was necessary to strike higher. A cry of 
shame and indignation rose from the whole nation, and Eliot 
led up and organized the Parliament to a charge upon Buck¬ 
ingham as the one grand delinquent. The king interposed for 
his favorite, and wrote an autograph letter to the House, in 
reply to their demand for redresses before they granted new 
supplies. 

“ I must let you know,” he continued, suddenly letting 
loose the thought he could no longer mask or control, “ that I 
will not allow any of my servants to be questioned among you, 
much less such as are of eminent place and near unto me. 

. . . I see you especially aim at the Duke of Buckingham. 
I wonder what hath so altered your affection toward him ? 
. . . What hath he done since the last Parliament of my 
father’s time, to alter and change your minds ? I wot not ; 
but can assure you he hath not meddled or done anything con¬ 
cerning the public, or commonwealth, but by special directions 
and appointment, and as my servant. ... I would you 
would hasten for my supply, or else it will be worse for your¬ 
selves ; for if any evil happen, I think I shall be the last that 
shall feel it.” 

Grandly Eliot remarked to the House, when the letter of the 
king was read, “ We have had a representation of great fear, 
but I hope it will not darken our understandings.” The mes¬ 
sage of the king seems only to have led Eliot to a piercing and 
most eloquent analysis in the House of the nature of monarchy 
and kingly office. This speech produced an immense excite¬ 
ment. The next day the mad-headed king called the Houses 
to attend him at Whitehall. He told them he had “ to give 
thanks to the Lords, but none to the Commons, whose fault it 


66 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


was his purpose to control.” He demanded supplies sufficient 
and unconditional. If not granted, the House would be dis¬ 
solved. “ Remember,” said the king, “ that Parliaments are 
altogether in my power for their calling, sitting, and dissolu¬ 
tion ; and therefore, as I find the fruits of them good or evil, 
they are to continue or not to be.” We can ourselves conceive 
how great was the consternation which must have been pro¬ 
duced by such a speech. The next day the House met, sat 
with locked doors, placed the key in the Speaker’s hands, and 
forbade any member to leave the House, a practice then very 
unusual. Then Eliot rose, a resolute man, through whose lips 
how much more kingly a soul expressed itself, than that of the 
weak, pettish, and merely obstinate king ! He said, “ The 
House met neither to do what the king should command them, 
nor to abstain where he should forbid them, and therefore they 
should continue constant to maintain their privileges, and not 
do either more or less for what had been said to them.” And 
while uttering these and like words, and moving a remon¬ 
strance to the king, the House cried, ” Well spoken, Sir John 
Eliot !” And then, of course, what should follow but the 
impeachment of the duke ? 

No doubt the speech in which Buckingham was impeached 
is a great speech. Probably nothing of which we have any 
knowledge or recollection could have so expressed the natural 
indignation of the House and of the whole enraged kingdom. 
Wrath which had been gathering for years broke forth ; crimes 
patent to all knowledge, unblushing in their effrontery, were 
pointed to and brought out into the clear light of the parlia¬ 
mentary countenance ; nor did the speaker hesitate for a mo¬ 
ment in his dignified career of accusation because he knew the 
impossibility of delivering such a crimination and denunciation 
without, in some measure, impeaching the king, and placing 
himself, not only beneath royal displeasure, but within the 
reach of royal punishment. All came in for condemnation : 
the St. Peter, of Newhaven ; the treason of Rochelle ; the ex¬ 
tortions and exactions upon East Indian and other merchants. 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN - ELIOT. 


67 


u No right, no interest, may withstand him. Through the 
powers of state and justice he has dared ever to strike at his 
own ends. Your lordships have had this sufficiently expressed 
in the case of the St. Peter, and by the ships at Dieppe. ’ ’ He 
then advanced to the astounding illustration of the personal 
aggrandizement of the man : “I am raised,” he exclaimed, 
“ to observe a wonder—a wonder both in policy and nature. ” 

“ My lords, I have done. You see the man ! What have 
been his actions, whom he is like, you know. I leave him to 
your judgments. This only is conceived by us, the knights, 
citizens, and burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament, 
that by him came all out evils, in him we find the causes, and 
on him must be the remedies. To this end we are now ad¬ 
dressed to your lordships, in confidence of your justice, to 
which some late examples and your wisdoms invite us. We 
cannot doubt your lordships. The greatness, the power, the 
practice of the whole world, we know to be all inferior to your 
greater judgments ; and from thence we take assurance. To 
that, therefore, we now refer him ; there to be examined, there 
to be tried ; and in due time from thence we shall express such 
judgment as his cause merits.” 

The king’s wrath broke all bounds, and early the next day 
Eliot was in the Tower. When a reference by Eliot to Sejanus 
had been reported to the king, he exclaimed, “ Implicitly he 
must intend me for Tiberius !” He hastened to the Lords. 
With Buckingham by his side he vindicated himself and his 
minister from the “ vile and malicious calumnies of the Com¬ 
mons.” The arrest of Eliot had been swift and secret. 
Arrested in the House, still his imprisonment, with that of 
Digges, was for a short time unknown. When it did become 
known, although Mr. Pym rose to counsel moderation, the 
House would not hear him. “ Rise ! rise ! rise !” was shouted 
on all sides. “ No business till we are righted in our liber¬ 
ties.” It was the same the next day when the Speaker at¬ 
tempted to proceed with the business of the House. “Sit 
down, sit down !” was the universal cry. “ No business till 


68 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


we are righted in our liberties !” Digges was instantly 
liberated, against him nothing could be alleged in comparison 
with the high misdemeanors of Eliot. As he resumed his seat, 
the House turned itself into a grand committee concerning Sir 
John Eliot. His papers had been seized, efforts were made to 
prove him the head of a conspiracy, and it was resolved to put 
him to the question. So still in the Commons went on the in¬ 
dignation, and in the Tower the examination, and the Com¬ 
mons pertinaciously would attend to no business, nor be quiet, 
until he was released. He was released, and took his place 
again amid the joyful manifestations of his fellow members ; 
rising directly in his place, and requesting to hear what was 
charged against him, that he might show by his answer whether 
he was worthy to sit there. The poor king, as in every move¬ 
ment of his political life, lost greatly by this transaction ; and 
yet it produced so little good upon his own mind, that years 
after he was none the less willing to jeopardize his position by 
attempting to arrest Hampden and Pym. Clamor and debate 
went on within the House, and men’s hearts failed them for 
fear without. While the Remonstrance was passing, a wild 
storm broke over London. Wind and hail, rain, lightning 
and thunder, the like of it was never known in the memory of 
living man : the churchyard walls were broken down, the earth 
rent and torn from the graves, revealing, so it is said, the faces 
of the dead ; supernatural shapes in the mist hung brooding 
over the Thames, and the superstitious saw misty shape and 
storm and tempest bearing on and beating against the house of 
the Duke of Buckingham, its stairs and its walls. Storms were 
moving toward York House too. The next day the House was 
summoned by the king to hear the commission of dissolution. 
The Commons knew their crafty king. They had passed in 
haste their remonstrance. The Speaker was instructed how 
to act ; he approached the throne holding up the “ Great Re¬ 
monstrance” as he approached, and craved compliance with its 
“humble petition for the removal of that great person, the 
Duke of Buckingham, from access to your royal presence.” 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES: SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


69 


Without a word the dissolution followed. And even while the 
commission was read, members were seen reading copies of this 
which has been through all time called the “ Great Remon¬ 
strance and so the House, led on by Eliot, had done its de¬ 
termined work. The Remonstrance had been accomplished 
just in time ; in a few days it would be in the hands of the 
people, and would tell why the king had once more so rudely 
dismissed his Parliament. 

For two years the king governed by prerogative, and it may 
be supposed that the failure to punish Eliot would not make 
the king and his minister the more pleasant and affectionate in 
their feelings toward the patriot. “Bottomless Bagge” and 
Buckingham, between them, devised a form of conspiracy 
against Eliot. He still held his office of Vice-Admiral, and an 
effort was made to get up a case against him in connection with 
his office ; and there was a draft of a paper of a peculiar kind, 
inquiring “ whether Sir John may not be sequestered in the 
mean time ;” in fact, whether he could not be struck without 
the awkwardness of being heard. Eliot stood between a Ham¬ 
burg merchantman and a gang of Welsh pirates ; this again 
seemed to be in some way an infraction of the Lord Admiral’s 
designs and ideas. Several cases are recited during this period 
of the government by prerogative, in which “ Bottomless 
Bagge’s” foul play, and the vile connivance of the Council are 
brought out conspicuously. “Honesty among them,’’ says 
Mr. Forster, “ was only a commodity to deal in—too scarce to 
be wasted ; and to any share of it such people as Sir John 
Eliot could have no claim.” We next find Eliot, in those days 
of prerogative, refusing the loan, the celebrated loan, of which 
John Hampden said, “ I could be content to lend as well as 
others, but I should fear to draw upon myself the curse in 
Magna Charta, which should be read twice a year, against those 
who infringe it.” Eliot issued a public appeal through the 
West against the loan, and grounded his resistance to it upon 
its essentially unconstitutional character. Bagge, who in addi¬ 
tion to being a rascal, was an exceeding ass, wrote to show that 


70 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the much-vaunted Magna Charta, which Eliot magnified, was a 
mere abortion ; he laughed at the Barons and their rebellious 
armies in the meadows of Staines, and called their meeting to¬ 
gether “ satanical,” and Eliot is “ satanical,” too, for citing 
it. About this business Eliot found his way into the Gate¬ 
house. The nation raised a loud outcry for a Parliament. It 
had been hoped that Eliot might have been outlawed ; at any 
rate, it was hoped that he might be excluded from a Parlia¬ 
ment. Alas ! when he was released, it was only to be received 
with rapture throughout Cornwall, and to be returned, not as 
member for Newport, but as knight of the shire. Thus the 
man most disaffected to the Duke and the Court appeared with 
half the country at his heels in the third Parliament of Charles 
I. ; that ominous Parliament, than which only another was 
more fearful to the king. It met in March, 1628. Eliot was 
then thirty-eight years old, and had only four more years 
to live at all. How much to be done in those four years ! 
The king at once told his Commons that he only called them 
together that they should vote him sufficient supply. He 
trusted they would not give way to the follies of particular 
men. The “ particular men,” however, entered the House 
with the same resolution they exhibited two years before. 
Eliot was one of the first speakers upon those grounds of 
offence growing out of the resistance of Nonconformity to pre- 
latical assumptions. How eloquent are the following words, 
and how do their forcible expressions enlighten us on the char¬ 
acter of the man ! 

“ Religion,” he proceeded, “ is the chief virtue of a man, 
devotion and religion ; and of devotion, prayer and fasting are 
the chief characters. Let these be corrupted in their use, the 
devotion is corrupt. If the devotion be once tainted, the relig¬ 
ion is impure. It then, denying the power of godliness, be¬ 
comes but an outward form ; and, as it is concluded in the 
text, a religion that is in vain. Of such religion in this place, 
or at these times, I impeach no man. Let their own con¬ 
sciences accuse them. Of such devotion I make no judgment 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


71 


upon others, but leave them to the Searcher of all hearts. 
This only for caution I address to you : that if any of us have 
been guilty in this kind, let us now here repent it. And let us 
remember that repentance is not in words. It is not a 4 Lord ! 
Lord ! 7 that will carry us into heaven, but the doing the will of 
our Father which is in heaven. And to undo our country is 
not to do that will. It is not that Father’s will that we should 
betray that mother. Religion, repentance, prayer, these are 
not private contracts to the public breach and prejudice. There 
must be a sincerity in it all ; a throughout integrity and per¬ 
fection, that our words and works be answerable. If our 
actions correspond not to our words, our successes will not be 
better than our hearts. When such near kindred differ, stran¬ 
gers may be at odds ; and the prevention of this evil is the 
chief reason 'that I move for. Nor is it without cause that this 
motion does proceed. If w r e reflect upon the former passages 
of this place, much might be thence collected to support the 
propriety of the caution. But the desire is better, to reform 
errors than to remember them. My affections strive for the 
happiness of this meeting, but it must be had from God. It is 
His blessing though our crown. Let us for Him, therefore, 
in all sincerity expect it ; and if any by vain shadows would 
delude us, let us distinguish between true substances and those 
shadows. It is religion, and not the name of religion, that 
must guide us ; that in the truth thereof we may with all unity 
be concordant : not turning it into subtlety and art, playing 
with God as with the powers of men ; but in the sincerity of 
our souls doing that work we came for. Which now I most 
humbly move, and pray for that blessing from above.” 

His attacks upon the illegalities of the last two years were as 
brave as before : the state of maritime affairs—the suspension 
and violation of statutes. With much condemnation, however, 
a vote of five subsidies was granted to the king ; but the time 
when the collection was to be made, or the Bill introduced, 
was not mentioned. The House immovably resolved that both 
were to depend on the good faith of the king. It was the 


72 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


greatest grant ever made in Parliament. The Secretary, on 
behalf of the king, proceeded to thank the House, but coupled 
thanks of Buckingham with thanks of the king. Sir John 
Eliot leaped up, and taxed Mr. Secretary with intermingling a 
subject’s speech with the king’s message : “in that House 
they knew of no other distinction but that of king and sub¬ 
jects.” Whereupon many of the House made exclamation, 
“ Well spoken , Sir John Eliot! ” 

There were, to our minds, some extraordinary subjects of 
debate, especially on the king’s claim to commit without cause 
shown on the face of the warrant. “ The greatest question,” 
exclaimed Pym, “ that ever was in this place or elsewhere !” 
Selden and Coke both spoke upon it. “ What,” answered 
Coke, ‘ * shall I accept such law ? Shall I have a state of in¬ 
heritance for life, or for years, in my land, and shall I be a 
tenant at will, for my liberty ! A freeman to be a tenant at 
will for his freedom ! There is no such tenure in all Little¬ 
ton.” We follow with earnest interest those discussions in 
which Eliot took so great and prominent a part, out of which 
came into existence the immortal Petition of Rights. These 
are great debates, greater debates are not recorded in history. 
“ Magna Charta is such a fellow,” said Coke, “ he will have 
no Sovereign.” The great charter of the people’s liberties was 
upheld and strengthened by the Petition of Rights. 

And it is in the course of these debates that the stately form 
of Wentworth, afterward Earl of Strafford, rises to the life. 
Wentworth’s was no vulgar ambition ; there is little reason to 
think that any such spirit, textured as his was, could have any 
hearty sympathies with the people or with freedom. True, 
his voice was also heard in favor of the great Petition of 
Rights ; but Mr. Forster has very distinctly brought out the 
reason of this. He had been thwarted by Buckingham, and 
the majestic and powerful man—to whom, in the great gallery of 
statesmen, Buckingham bore some such resemblance as a butter¬ 
fly might bear to an eagle—taught the favorite more rightly to 
estimate his power. Wentworth had been refused the Presi- 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 73 

dentship of York. He became the most ardent supporter of 
the Petition of Rights. He was insulted by Buckingham. He 
revenged, in an instant and remarkable manner, the insult. It 
was speedily atoned, and as speedily forgiven ; and then Went¬ 
worth is before us with a cloud of eloquent words, attempting 
to evaporate, or pour some haze round, an apparent burst of 
indignant eloquence, when he found himself on a previous 
night in company with the great voices of the defenders of the 
people. It is a picture on which we like to look—these two 
unquestionably foremost men of their parties, Eliot and Went¬ 
worth, in their famous duel. Eliot rose immediately with ease, 
to measure himself with his formidable antagonist. In a noble 
speech, he appealed to Wentworth against Wentworth. There 
was no man in the House better fitted to appreciate the singular 
dignity and grandeur of Eliot’s spirit than this dark, majestic 
complotter against the liberties of England. Eliot printed 
himself ineffaceably on Wentworth’s mind ; and twelve years 
later, when the mesh was almost woven, he nerved himself for 
conflict—when Eliot was all dust beneath the Tower Green, and 
hours of danger were leaping rapidly upon himself—by calling 
up the image of his old antagonist ; and no finer tribute was 
offered to the memory of Eliot than Wentworth uttered when 
he said, ‘ ‘ Sound or lame, I shall be with you before the begin¬ 
ning of Parliament. I should not fail, though Sir John Eliot 
were living.” In the discussion on which we are now looking, 
Eliot obtained an easy victory over the dark, ambitious man, 
whose day was hastening on, though not yet come. As we 
read the story of his life, it stirs feelings of pride for our coun¬ 
try, and homage for the men who have glorified and adorned 
it. We must pass over the strong language and persistent re¬ 
monstrances to the king on the conduct of his minister. The 
report of the Committee of Trade was a lamentable one. The 
losses by pirates continued to be amazing ; two hundred and 
forty-eight ships, of a hundred tons and upward, had been 
seized and lost between Dover and Newcastle. Seamen were 
wronged by inadequate wages and uncertain payment, and the 


74 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


want of hospitals for their reception was shown. As the events 
drive forward through the House, what scenes those are which 
meet us—a whole House in tears, and such a House ! Not a 
congregation of weak, feeble minds, but strong, sagacious law¬ 
yers, daring, resolute men, all aghast at the desolation falling 
on the country. Speeches were interdicted by messages from 
the king, until at last, in response to a speech of the octogena¬ 
rian Sir Edward Coke, that “ the author of all these miseries 
was the Duke of Buckingham,” strange shouts arose on every 
side, and a loud cry was heard of ‘ ‘ The Duke, the Duke ! ’tis 
he, ’tis he !” In the midst of all, while Eliot was engaged in 
unwebbing the abominations and the intricacies of the Court, 
death served his adversaries a good turn. A heavy calamity 
fell upon Eliot. We read on Friday, June 20th, in the Com¬ 
mons’ Journal, a notice, ‘ ‘ Sir John Eliot, in respect of the 
death of his wife, has leave to go down into the country and 
the impeachment of the great national foe was set aside by an¬ 
other unexpected circumstance,* too, on the 23d of August, this 
1628. A man went into “ the church which stood by the 
conduit in Fleet Street,” and left his name to be prayed for on 
the Sunday following, as a man disordered in his mind ; then 
he went to a cutler’s shop on Tower Hill, and bought a ten- 
penny dagger-knife, and upon a paper which he pinned to the 
lining of his hat he wrote the name ” John Felton,” afterward 
the assassin of Buckingham, and these words : 

“ That man is cowardly, base, and deserveth not the name 
of a gentleman or soldier, that is not willinge to sacrifice his life 
for the honor of his God, his kinge, and his countrie. Lett 
noe man commend me for doinge of it, but rather discommend 
themselves as the cause of it, for if God had not taken away 
our hearts for our sinnes, he would not have gone so longe un¬ 
punished.” 

We shall soon be with Eliot in his last scenes. He arrived 
in London for the last time on the 30th of December, 1628. 
Things were getting worse and worse. We come at last to the 
scene of the 29th of March, 1629 ; then Eliot made his last 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


75 


speech. Although the Speaker had the king's command for 
adjournment, Eliot continued to speak, Denzil, Holies, and 
Valentine meantime holding the Speaker in his chair. Amid 
gathering excitement, he presented the Declaration drawn up 
by the Committee of Trade ; the Speaker refused to receive it, 
the clerk refused to read it. Against the call of the most dis¬ 
tinguished members, the Speaker still refused. Still the Dec¬ 
laration was eventually read and put to the vote, and the House 
was in an uproar. 

In the history of the House of Commons, the scene which 
was now acting stands upon the pages of our great national 
story as not only one of the most exciting and memorable, but 
one of the most important. Eliot stands out as the chief actor 
in that great scene. A messenger from the king came dow r n 
to the House, but sought in vain to obtain an entrance ; amid 
the din Eliot’s voice rose clear, firm, and strong ; he carried 
the Declaration by a vast majority ; amid the repeated knock- 
ings of the Black Rod seeking admittance at the door, and 
with prophetic pathos, he said, ‘ ‘ As for myself, I further pro¬ 
test, as I am a gentleman, if my fortune be ever again to meet 
in this honorable assembly, where I now leave I will begin 
again anew.” A shout of assent carried the Declaration 
against all illegal taxation, and against all innovations in the 
religion of the State. Then the doors were opened, and the 
members rushed out, carrying away with them the king’s offi¬ 
cers who were standing and waiting for admission. It was the 
last time Eliot appeared in Parliament. The next day he was 
a close prisoner in the Tower, and from the grip of Charles he 
never escaped again alive. There was not another Parliament 
for eleven years. 

Eliot was fined £2000 ; he very likely increased the spite of 
the king by taking precautions against his pouncing upon this 
valuable little peculation ; he said he had two cloaks, a few 
books, a few pair of boots, and that was all his personal sub¬ 
stance, and if they could turn this into £2000, much good 
might it do them. So the sheriffs appointed to seize upon his 


76 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


possessions in Cornwall, for the king, were obliged to return a 
nihil. He secured his property in trust for his sons, and those 
he committed to the care of John Hampden ; and he directed 
his upholsterer to do what could be done to make his cell com¬ 
fortable in the Tower, there he took up his residence, there he 
spent the remainder of his days, there he wrote the “ Mon¬ 
archy of Man,” which Mr. John Forster has now made tolera¬ 
bly familiar to English readers, and which shows the master of 
the eloquent tongue to have been equally master of the elo¬ 
quent pen and eloquent prose, and whose stateliness places its 
writer on the same level with the authors of “ Areopagitica, ” 
and the first books of the “ Ecclesiastical Polity.” Our knowl¬ 
edge of Sir John Eliot has largely increased since Disraeli the 
elder wrote his Commentaries ; in fact, at that time, the story 
of Eliot was almost a blank in our history. Disraeli said, 
“ The harshness of Charles toward Eliot, to me indicates a 
cause of offence either of a deeper dye or of a more personal 
nature than perhaps we have yet discovered.” In fact, it was 
Disraeli’s desire to show that the great affairs in which Eliot 
took part moved upon the wheels of private grudges, and such 
private grudges are manifest enough in the conduct of Charles, 
but not in that of Eliot; the most careful investigation only 
shows how ardently patriotic and pure were the motives of this 
great herald of the Revolution. 

Through all the shuffling of judges, and the dodging of 
courtiers, and their “Bottomless Bagges,” we cannot follow 
the imprisoned patriot’s history. When a mean spirit gets a 
majestic one into its power, we know what follows. A cat 
would care for a nightingale, a tiger for an antelope, as little as 
Charles Stuart cared for John Eliot, and their relations were 
very similar. The pretexts for his detention were various and 
singular. Then came hours of sickness—the frame was broken 
down with cold and watching, but the spirit was unbroken still. 
All his efforts to obtain release were in vain, and the Tower 
finally closed upon him. Eliot was dying of consumption. 
Charles was repeatedly petitioned, but petitioned in vain, to 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR JOHN ELIOT. 


77 


remit some portion of the cheerless discomfort of his illegal 
imprisonment. He died the 27th of November, 1632. The 
king was petitioned by Eliot’s son that he would permit the 
body of his father to be carried to the ancestral vaults in Corn¬ 
wall ; the king coldly replied, “ Let Sir John Eliot’s body be 
buried in the church of the parish where he died.” His dust 
lies in the chapel of the Tower. How welcome the tidings 
were at Whitehall that the great juror on the crimes of tyrants, 
the vindicator of the freedom of the people, had gone away, 
we can well believe ; he would torment tyrants and traitors and 
parasites and Stuarts no more. He died in his forty-third 
year. And yet there are those even still living, who maintain 
that the Revolution was unnecessary, and call Charles an in¬ 
jured and martyred king. Eliot was the great precursor who 
showed the necessity for Cromwell ; was it not time that 
Cromwell should come ? 


CHAPTER IV. 


CROMWELL, “THE LORD OF THE FENS,” AND FIRST APPEAR¬ 
ANCE IN PARLIAMENT. 

From our discursive view of the times and character of 
James, and the earlier and obscure years of the life of Crom¬ 
well, we now enter upon his more public career. The first 
occasion of his appearance in any service connected with the 
public, was upon the attempt made by the needy Charles to 
wrest, for the purposes of his exchequer, from the Earl of Bed¬ 
ford and the people, the fens which had been drained. The 
case has been variously stated. The brief history is somewhat 
as follows : 

In those days some millions of acres of the finest plains in 
the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, and 
Lincoln, lay undrained. Several years before the period to 
which we now refer, the Earl of Oxford and other noblemen of 
that day had proposed to drain large portions of them, and in 
fact had done so. The Bedford Level, containing nearly 400,- 
000 acres, had been completed, when it was found necessary 
to call in other aid ; and a proposition was made to the Crown, 
offering a fair proportion of the land for its assistance and 
authority in the completion of the whole. 

Until now all had gone on well ; but hungry Charles saw 
here an opportunity of gratifying his cupidity. A number of 
commissioners came from the king to Huntingdon ; they, in¬ 
structed by the king’s own letter, proceeded to lay claim under 
various pretexts, such as corrupt and servile ministers know 
how to use, to 95,000 acres of land already drained. Crom¬ 
well stepped upon the stage of action, and the draining of the 
fens was entirely stopped. Many writers affect to put a bad 
construction upon this first public act of Cromwell’s ; while, to 


“THE LORD OF THE FENS.” 79 

any but horny eyes, the reason of the whole business is most 
obvious. 

“ The Protector’s enemies would persuade us that his oppo¬ 
sition to Charles’s interference arose out of the popular objec¬ 
tion, supported by him, to the project itself ; and, that the end 
he proposed to himself, and obtained, was its hindrance ; for¬ 
getting that if his, or the general wish, had been to impede 
the work, the time that would have been chosen for the 
attempt would have been at the revival of the idea, some seven 
or eight years previously, and not that, when so large a portion 
of it was accomplished in the completion (nearly) of the real 
Bedford Level. But the obvious utility of the undertaking 
would alone render the idea of extended opposition to it, 
grounded on its own merits, unlikely ; and particularly as to 
Cromwell, from his known approbation and encouragement 
afterward afforded to all such public-spirited schemes, and the 
thanks he actually received from William, the next Earl of 
Bedford, for his promotion of this identical one. It is proper 
to observe, that though the above-given account of this whole 
transaction is from Nalson Cole, who as “ Register to the Cor¬ 
poration of Bedford Level,” was doubtless generally well in¬ 
formed, yet that it differs from that writer in stating the drain¬ 
age of the Level to have been nearly , and not fully, completed 
at the time of the king’s interposition. That it was not then 
fully completed appears from an Act, much forwarded by 
Cromwell , in 1649, which runs : “ And whereas Francis, late 
Earl of Bedford, did undertake the said work, and had ninety- 
five thousand acres, parcel of the said great level, decreed and 
set forth, in the thirteenth of the late King Charles, in recom¬ 
pense thereof ; and he and his participators, and their heirs 
and assigns had made a good progress therein.” * 

Even Mr. Forster puts a forced construction upon Cromwell’s 
opposition to the king ; for he roused up the country, and the 
draining now became impossible. His name was sounded to 


* Thomas Cromwell's “Life of Cromwell,” pp. 70, 71. 


80 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


and fro as a second Hereward. He was long after, and is to 
this day, called “the Lord of the Fens.” Why was this? 
There could be nothing in the mere fact of opposing the making 
the watery wastes habitable calculated to arouse so stormy an 
opposition. The thing was most desirable ; but, to drain them 
so—to give additional power to the bad Crown—nay, to consent 
to the dishonest forfeiture of the lands of the men who labored 
first at this desirable scheme ! Here was the cause !—the 
claim of the king is unjust ! It is not wise nor right that the 
king should have power here. Resist him and his commission¬ 
ers. Cromwell did ; as Hampden said, “ He set well at the 
mark,” defeated monarch and commissioners ; and, after 
acquiring no small degree of notice and fame, he retired again 
into obscurity and silence. 

Not long ! His days of silence and quiet were now well- 
nigh over. Charles was compelled to “ summon a Parlia¬ 
ment,” he wanted money ; he only wanted a Parliament to 
help him to get it ;—it was long since a Parliament had met. 
Parliament, when it met, determined that there were other 
things to which to attend beside granting the king money ; 
that ominous short Parliament was a memorable one, and con¬ 
tained in it many memorable men, Knolles, Hampden, Eliot, 
Selden, and Cromwell as member for Huntingdon. This 
appearance of our hero was but for a very brief period, but it 
would introduce him to the most noticeable men of the popular 
interest. Forster has drawn a portrait in which there is great 
mingled power, freedom, and truth ; it is an imaginary sketch 
of Oliver’s first appearance in Parliament, in company with his 
cousin, John Hampden. 

“ Let us suppose,’’ says he, “ that he and Hampden entered 
the House together at the momentous opening of that famous 
Parliament—two men already linked together by the bonds of 
counsel and friendship, yet more than by those of family, but 
presenting how strange a contrast to each other in all things 
save the greatness of their genius. The one of exquisite mild 
deportment, of ever civil and affable manners, with a counte- 


THE LORD OF THE FEE'S. 


81 


<c 


a 


nance that at once expressed the dignity of his intellect, and 
the sweetness of his nature ; and even in his dress, arranged 
with scrupulous nicety and care, announcing the refinement of 
his mind. The other, a figure of no mean mark, but oh, how 
unlike that ! His gait clownish, his dress ill-made and slov¬ 
enly, his manners coarse and abrupt, and face such as men look 
on with a vague feeling of admiration and dislike ! The feat¬ 
ures cut, as it were, out of a piece of gnarled and knotty oak ; 
the nose large and red ; the cheeks coarse, warted, wrinkled, 
and sallow ; the eyebrows huge and shaggy, but, glistening 
from beneath them, eyes full of depth and meaning, and, when 
turned to the gaze, pierced through and through the gazer ; 
above these, again, a noble forehead, whence, on either side, 
an open flow of hair ‘ round from his parted forelock manly 
hangs,’ clustering ; and over all, and pervading all, that un- 
definable aspect of greatness, alluded to by the poet Dryden 
when he spoke of the face of Cromwell as one that 

. . . . ‘ did imprint an awe. 

And naturally all souls to his did bow. 

As wands of divination downward draw. 

And point to beds where sovereign gold doth grow.’ 

Imagine, then, these two extraordinary men, now for the first 
time together passing along the crowded lobbies of that most 
famous assembly—Hampden greeting his friends as he passes, 
stopping now and then, perhaps, to introduce his country kins¬ 
man to the few whose curiosity had mastered the first emotion 
inspired by the singular stranger, but pushing directly forward 
toward a knot of active and eager faces that are clustered round 
a little spot near the bar of the House, on the right of the 
Speaker’s chair, in the midst of which stand Sir John Eliot, 
Sir Robert Philips, and Pym. The crowd made way for 
Hampden—the central figures of that group receive him among 
them with deference and gladness—he introduces his cousin 
Cromwell—and, among the great spirits whom that little spot 
contains, the clownish figure, the awkward gait, the slovenly 


82 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


dress, pass utterly unheeded ; for in his first few words they 
have discovered the fervor, and perhaps suspected the greatness, 
of this accession to their cause.” 

The brief interruption to Cromwell’s silent life, his return 
for the borough of Huntingdon, was, as we have seen and said, 
the only one, until he took his seat in the fourth Parliament of 
Charles I. for Cambridge. His election was most obstinately 
contested, and he was returned at last by the majoritj^ of a 
single vote ; his antagonist was Cleaveland, the poet. “ That 
vote,” exclaimed Cleaveland, “ hath ruined both Church and 
kingdom.” 

One is inclined to inquire, what then had been the conse¬ 
quence had Cromwell not been returned ; yet, perhaps, the 
consequence had not been materially different, for the Parlia¬ 
mentary duties appear to have sat very lightly upon him. He 
spoke but seldom, and briefly ; it was without, in the world, 
among the people in decided action, that he appeared greatest. 
The particulars of him at this time are very full. A Royalist 
contemporary, Sir Philip Warwick, writes thus : “ The first 
time I ever took notice of him was in the beginning of the 
Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought 
myself a courtly young gentleman (for we courtiers valued our¬ 
selves much upon our good clothes). I came into the House 
one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking 
whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled ; for it was a 
plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill 
country tailor ; his linen was plain, and not very clean ; and I 
remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which 
was not much larger than his collar ; his hat was without a hat¬ 
band. His stature was of a good size ; sword stuck close to 
his side ; his countenance swollen and reddish ; his voice sharp 
and untuneable ; and his eloquence full of fervor —for the sub¬ 
ject matter would not bear much of reason, it being in behalf 
of a servant of Mr. Prynne’s, who had dispersed libels against 
the Queen for her dancing, and such like innocent and courtly 
sports ; and he aggravated the imprisonment of his man by the 


“THE LORD OF THE FENS.” 83 

council table to that height, that one would have believed the 
very Government itself had been in great danger by it. I sin¬ 
cerely profess it lessened my reverence unto that great council, 
for he was very much hearkened unto. And yet I lived to see 
this very gentleman, whom, out of no ill will to him, I thus 
desoribe, by multiplied good success, and by real but usurped 
power (having had a better tailor, and more converse among 
good company) in my own eye, when for six weeks together I 
was a prisoner in his sergeant’s hands, and daily waited at 
Whitehall, appear of a great and majestic deportment and 
comely presence.” * 

This description of Cromwell’s negligence in the article of 
dress is corroborated by the story we have already told that 
Lord Digby, one day going down the stairs of the Parliament 
House with Hampden, and inquiring of the latter, not knowing 
Oliver personally, who “ that sloven” was—“ That sloven ,” 
replied Hampden, “ whom you see before you, that sloven , I 
say, if we should ever come to a breach with the king, which 
God forbid !—in such a case, I say, that sloven will be the 
greatest man in England.” 

And to quote once more : a passage from one of Dr. South’s 
sermons will give us a hint of the general estimation of the ap¬ 
pearance of the future Protector ; that same South, by the bye, 
who wrote a fine Latin eulogy upon the “ bankrupt, beggarly 
fellow” at the time Cromwell was Chancellor of Oxford and 
Magistrate of Great Britain. “ Who,” said that conscientious 
divine, “ who that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow 
as Cromwell, first entering the Parliament House, with a 
threadbare torn coat and a greasy hat (and perhaps neither of 
them paid for), could have suspected that in the course of so 
few years he should, by the murder of one king and the ban¬ 
ishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested with royal 
robes, and want nothing of the state of a king but the chang¬ 
ing of his hat into a crown.” “ ‘ Odds fish, Lory ! ’ exclaimed 

* See “Memoirs of Sir Philip Warwick.” 


84 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the laughing Charles, when he heard this from the divine who 
had panegyrized the living Protector ; ‘ odds fish, man ! your 
chaplain must be a bishop. Put me in mind of him at the next 
vacancy.’ Oh, glorious time for the Church I Oh, golden 
age for the Profligate and the Slave !” * 

There, then, you see him in the House, that famous Long 
Parliament—the most remarkable Parliament ever summoned 
to sit in the history of the English nation. By this time, you 
may be sure, Cromwell and Hampden were the two most noted 
men of the popular party : the one the defeater of the king in 
the lordship of the fens, and the other a still more celebrated 
man from his supposed defeat by the king in the affair of the 
ship-money, an unjust subsidy levied by the king, and stoutly 
challenged by John Hampden on behalf of all England. There 
was need for action ; the king had extended the forests of the 
country, at the same time he cut down from the forest land the 
trees, and thus destroyed the store of the country’s shipping. 
By the gross illegal seizure of ship-money, he secured to him¬ 
self £700,000 per annum, while our seas were left unguarded, 
and Turkish pirates ranged them uncontrolled. Charles was 
determined to govern by prerogative, and not by Parliament. 
He sold privileges for every unjust exaction. A patent for the 
manufacture of soap was sold ; a very sad affliction indeed, for 
in addition to the costly price from the existence of the mo¬ 
nopoly for which £10,000 had been paid, the linen had been 
burned, and the flesh as well, in the washing ; so that the city 
of London was visited by an insurrection of women, and the 
Lord Mayor was reprimanded by the king because he gave 
them his sympathy. Every item almost was taxed. Hackney 
coaches were prohibited because sedan chairs appeared for the 
first time—Sir Sanders Duncombe having purchased from the 
king the right to carry people up and down in them. We can¬ 
not catalogue all the profitable items of little tyranny. It was 
an exasperating time. 


* Forster. 


“THE LORD OF THE FEE'S.” 85 

And in that Long Parliament, what things were to pass be¬ 
fore Cromwell’s eye before the last decisive steps were taken ! 
How must even his energetic mind have received new and in¬ 
vigorating impulses from finding himself surrounded by so 
many brave and daring companions. Scarcely, indeed, had 
the Parliament met, before it proceeded to impeach Strafford, 
that mighty master-stroke, by which the powerful oppressor 
was in a moment cast down—a prisoner in the hands of the 
people whose liberties he had so repeatedly outraged, and so 
daringly and contemptuously scoffed at and insulted—a pris¬ 
oner, until liberated only by the hands of the executioner. 
Daring indeed were the deeds of this Parliament : “A Bill 
was proposed,” says Guizot, in his summary “ History of the 
English Revolution,” “January 19th, 1641, which prescribed 
the calling a Parliament ‘ every three years, at most.’ If the 
king did not convoke one, twelve peers, assembled in West¬ 
minster, might summon one without his co-operation ; in de¬ 
fault of this, the sheriffs and municipal officers were to proceed 
with the elections. If the sheriffs neglected to see to it, the 
citizens had a right to assemble and elect representatives. No 
Parliament could be dissolved or adjourned without the con¬ 
sent of the two Houses, till fifty days after its meeting ; and to 
the Houses alone belonged the choice of their respective 
Speakers. At the first news of this Bill, the king quitted the 
silence in which he had shut himself up, and assembling both 
Houses at Whitehall, January 23d, said : ‘ I like to have fre¬ 
quent Parliaments, as the best means to preserve that right un¬ 
derstanding between me and my subjects which I so earnestly 
desire. But to give power to sheriffs and constables, and I 
know not whom, to do my office, that I cannot yield to.’ The 
House only saw in these words a new motive to press forward 
the adoption of the Bill. None dared counsel the king to 
refuse it ; he yielded, but in doing so, thought it due to his 
dignity to show the extent of his displeasure. He said, ‘ I do 
not know for what you can ask, that I can hereafter make any 
question to yield unto you ; so far, truly, I have had no 


86 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


encouragement to oblige you, for you have gone on in that 
which concerns yourselves, and not those things which merely 
concern the strength of this kingdom. You have taken the 
government almost to pieces, and I may say, it is almost off its 
hinges. A skilful watchmaker, to make clean his watch will 
take it asunder, and when it is put together again it will go all 
the better, so that he leaves not out one pin of it. Now, as I 
have done my part, you know what to do on yours. ’—Febru¬ 
ary 16th, 1641. 

“ The Houses passed a vote of thanks to the king, and forth¬ 
with proceeded in the work of reform, demanding, in succes¬ 
sive motions, the abolition of the Star Chamber, of the North 
Court, of the Ecclesiastical Court of High Commission, and of 
all extraordinary tribunals. ’ ’ 

Charles found that the dismissal of his previous Parliament 
was one of the most ill-judged actions of his life. In this 
Long Parliament the same men were brought together, all of 
them who possessed any influence or power ; but whereas they 
came first prepared to conciliate and deal with the king gen¬ 
erously and loyally, they came now prepared to trim down to 
the utmost all his prerogatives, and to extend and assert to the 
utmost the power of the people. It was the great battle-time 
of liberty and absolutism—the trial of monarchy and democ¬ 
racy. The king, beyond all question, pushed and urged his 
power to extremes, and so hurried the popular party on far be¬ 
yond their original intention and design. We have the famous 
“ Remonstrance of the state of the kingdom,” which, after a 
debate, stormy beyond all precedent, was carried through the 
House by the small and little satisfactory majority of nine; 
only this remonstrance was a direct elevation of the democratic 
over the aristocratic interests of the country. It was ordered 
to be printed and published, with the concurrence of the upper 
House, and was, in fact, an appeal to the people against the king. 
But this, which so many have deprecated as wickedly unloyal 
and traitorous, was called for by the conduct of the king, who, 
during his absence in Scotland, in the time of its preparation, 


“THE LORD OF THE FEE'S.” 87 

was known to be attempting to curb the power of tbe Parlia¬ 
ment by the raising of a northern army. 

The Grand Remonstrance has been but little understood. 
Yet what more natural, what more necessary, than the Remon¬ 
strance ? It was the solemn call of the powerful spirits of the 
legislature to the king and to the nation to consider. The 
principles of the Remonstrance are now well known. It is a 
solemn catalogue of the evils and the tyranny beneath which 
the people groaned. Speaking of the taxes, Sir John Culpep¬ 
per, a Royalist, say&, “The taxes, like the frogs of Egypt, 
have gotten possession of our dwellings, and we have scarcely 
a room free from them. They sip in our cup, they dip in our 
dish, they sit by our fire ; we find them in the dye vat, wash¬ 
ing bowl, and powdering box ; they share with the butler in 
the pantry, they have marked us from head to foot, they will 
not bate us a pin.” The sovereign was bent on every illegal 
means of raising money. Yet the Long Parliament, after a 
very imperious speech from the king, voted him five subsidies, 
£350,000. It was an enormous sum for those days. Surely 
such men deserved some confidence. But the king would not 
halt on his grasping and suicidal way. 

At this juncture the bishops precipitated matters by their 
unwise “ Protestation,” addressed, by twelve of their number, 
to the Upper House, a protestation which the peers them¬ 
selves, in a conference they held upon the matter, declared to 
contain “ matters of dangerous consequence, extending to the 
deep entrenching upon the fundamental privileges and being of 
parliaments.” As to the bishops themselves, the Commons 
accused them of high treason, and on the next day ten of them 
were sent to the Tower, the two others, in regard to their great 
age, being committed to the custody of the Black Rod. 

Rapidly now came on the tug of war. The king issued a 
declaration in reply to the Remonstrance. He sent the Attor¬ 
ney-General to the House of Lords to impeach one of the pop¬ 
ular members, Lord Kimbolton, together with Hampden, Pym, 
and three other members of the Lower House ; and, as if 


88 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


determined that no act of his should be wanting to justify the 
opposition of his enemies, he went next day to the House of 
Commons, attended by desperadoes—“ soldiers of fortune”— 
armed with partisan, pistol, and sword, to seize the members 
denounced. This scene has been so often described that it 
were quite a work of supererogation to describe it again here. 
Let all be summed up in a word. Reconciliation between the 
king and the Parliament was now impossible. The privileges 
of the House had been violated in a manner in which no mon¬ 
arch had dared to violate them before. And such a Parlia¬ 
ment !—men of the most distinguished courage and intelligence 
in the kingdom. The members he sought had escaped through 
the window. They fled in haste to the city. Thither the 
most distinguished members of the House followed them. 
They were protected by the Common Council from the king, 
who himself followed them to the city, demanding their 
bodies ; but in vain. He was his own officer, both of military 
and police ; but as he went along, the growls of “ Privilege, 
privilege—privilege of Parliament,” greeted him everywhere. 
One of the crowd, bolder than the rest, approached his car¬ 
riage, shouting, “ To your tents, 0 Israel !” The king had 
given the last drop to fill up the measure of contempt with 
which he was regarded. He had struggled with his Parlia¬ 
ment, and he was unsuccessful. Here was a hint for such men 
to act upon ; and petitions from all parts of the land poured 
in, from vast bodies of the people, declaring their intention to 
stand by the Parliament : from counties, cities, towns, 
parishes, trades ; the porters petitioned ; the watermen ( water - 
rats , Charles called them) petitioned. And we may gather the 
state of domestic confusion from the fact that the women peti¬ 
tioned. The mind of the country was roused against the mon¬ 
arch. Meantime the exiled members were brought back in 
triumph to the House, amid the pealing of martial music, flags 
waving from the mastheads of all the vessels on the river, the 
masts covered with shouting sailors, and the long procession of 
city barges—for at that day most great triumphal processions 


“THE LORD OF THE FEHS.” 80 

took place on the Thames ; and while the five members 
stepped into the House, the House rising to receive them, 
Charles fled to Hampton Court, nor did he see his palace at 
Whitehall again until he beheld it as a prisoner, and stepped 
from its banqueting-house to a scaffold. 

We have no idea, in these pages, of presenting to the reader 
a history of the times ; but in this running stream of incident 
he will be able to gather the description of the platform pre¬ 
paring for the deeds of Cromwell. Of course the House was 
emboldened by its triumph. It no doubt judged that Charles, 
by his ignorance and his injudiciousness, had made himself 
unfit to guide the affairs of the nation, and the demands of the 
House were therefore now proportioned to their triumphs. 
They demanded the keeping of the Tower and all the principal 
fortresses of the kingdom. They demanded the choosing and 
control of the militia, the army and navy then being so called. 
And upon the king’s refusal, the House conferred upon them¬ 
selves the powers they had desired. He issued a proclamation 
against them, which was in turn declared to be void in law. 
The king now left Hampton Court, proceeding toward York, 
He appeared before Hull, hoping by surprise to obtain posses¬ 
sion of a large quantity of military stores deposited there. 
Thus the king begun the work of insurrection. The Parlia¬ 
ment, in anticipation of the king’s design, directed the several 
counties to array, train, and muster the people, as in cases of 
domestic insurrection. And the king retorted upon the Parlia¬ 
ment by issuing a proclamation for suppressing the rebellion ; 
and shortly after, coming to Nottingham, he there erected his 
standard, August 25th, 1642, in the midst of a loud storm, 
which, as none failed to notice, blew it down the same even¬ 
ing. Thus he began the Civil War. Cromwell, at this time, 
was forty-three years of age. 

It is not clear that even yet Charles suspected the dangers his 
rashness so persistently invoked. The reader has, perhaps, 
heard how, once upon a time, a London exquisite descended 
into a coal mine on a voyage of exploration and discovery ; 


90 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


lie saw everything—Davy lamps, blind horses, trucks of coal 
rolling along subterranean tramways. Seated on a cask to 
rest himself, he proceeded to question the swarthy miner, who 
was his conductor, concerning many things, and especially 
about the operation of blasting. “ And whereabouts, my 
man, ” condescendingly said he, “ whereabouts do you keep 
your powder?” “Please, sir,” replied the swart one, 
“ you’re a-sittin’ on it !” Charles was in a world to him all 
dark and subterranean, and sitting on a powder-mine, of the 
existence of which he had no knowledge, although it was be¬ 
neath his throne* 


CHAPTER V. 


Cromwell’s contemporaries : john pym. 

As in a great picture, while some central character stands in 
the foreground, and is evidently understood to be the towering 
and commanding spirit around whom ultimately all the inferior 
characters revolve, yet nearer or more remote, more conspicuous 
or more dimly seen, a number of persons take their place on 
the canvas ; so in the life of Cromwell there were precursors, 
heralds, men with whom he labored, men who passed away, 
and left him, lonely, to meditate upon what they had done, 
and to take his own course as to what he must do. Lord 
Beaconsfield once said of Sir Robert Peel, that he was the 
greatest member of Parliament that ever lived. It was an 

D _ _ T _ - 

amazing estimate, and in the memory of such men as vv alpole, 
and the elder and the younger Pitt, not to mention more recent 
names, it must be regarded as an astonishing exaggeration ; 
but there was a man during the vexed years of which we are 
writing of whom this might most truly be said. John Pym 
is, probably, the name of the greatest member of Parliament 
that ever lived ; “ King Pym” they called him in his own 
time, and indeed he looks, among the circumstances of his 
age, like the monarch of the scene. Like all of those men 
whom Charles managed to make his enemies, Pym was a 
gentleman, born of a good old family in Somersetshire, in the 
year 1584 ; he studied at Oxford in Pembroke College, but 
like Hampden and Vane and Cromwell, he left his University 
without taking his degree. Milton was almost the only excep¬ 
tion, he took his B.A. and his M.A. Pym was very early 
distinguished for his eloquence and knowledge of common law ] 
he soon took his seat in Parliament, serving in those held 
during the close of the reign of James I., and all those held in 
the reign of Charles I. It is true, that which has been so 


92 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


often said, that no business was too large, and none too small, 
for him. As one after another the men appear before our eyes 
with whom Charles I. arrayed himself in conflict, one cannot 
but feel pity for the king : in 'every way he seems so small and 
they appear so great. Of them all, to some Pym has seemed 
the greatest ; and after his life of conflict, “ he was buried,’’ 
says Lord Bulwer Lytton, “ at Westminster, among the 
monuments of kings feebler and less despotic than himself. ” 
It is said that he, too, in the earlier period of his career, was 
one of those who despaired of his country, and with Cromwell, 
Hampden, and others, desired to embark for America ; the 
tradition is, as our readers doubtless know, that the ships in 
which they were about to sail were detained by order of 
Council. However this might be, it was Pym who at last, in 
the Long Parliament, attempted the great work of reforma¬ 
tion ; and Lord Clarendon recites a conversation he had with 
Pym in Westminster Hall, apparently in the early days of the 
Long Parliament, in which Pym said, “ They must now be of 
another temper than they were the last Parliament ; that they 
must not only sweep the House clean below, but must pull 
down all the cobwebs which hung in the top and corners, that 
they might not breed dust and so make a foul House hereafter ; 
that they now had an opportunity to make their country happy 
by removing all grievances, and pulling up the causes of them 
by the roots, if all men would do their duties.” 

This Parliament met ; it was long, many years, since Parlia¬ 
ment had assembled last. What gaps Pym would notice in the 
lines of his early friends who had sat there when the House 
then assembled. The venerable Coke was dead ; Sir John 
Eliot had died in prison, a martyr to the cause of which they 
had both been champions ; Sir Thomas Wentworth, who had 
started in life with the same party, had fallen away—he was an 
apostate, he was now the Earl of Strafford, regarded as a 
fallen spirit, and as the deadliest, the most powerful and dan¬ 
gerous enemy of those who had been the friends of his youth. 
All these circumstances would add, if anything were needed to 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : JOHN PYM. 


93 


add, intensity and vehemence to his convictions and his deter¬ 
minations. It was Pym who commenced in this Parliament, 
and rapidly pushed on, the discussion of the grievances which 
oppressed the country ; and on the 7th of November, the first 
day on which the House attended to business, it was Pym who 
made a long and elaborate speech, classing the grievances under 
privilege of Parliament, Religion, and Liberty of the Subject. 
On the 11th he made a sudden motion to the House with 
reference to that which had come to his knowledge of the 
imperious actions of Strafford both in England and in Ireland ; 
and while at this very moment a message came from the Lords 
concerning a treaty with the Scots, and desiring a meeting of 
a Committee of both Houses that afternoon, it was at the 
instance of Pym a message was returned to the Lords that the 
House had taken into consideration their message, but that 
they were in agitation upon weighty and important business, 
that they could not give them the meeting they desired on that 
afternoon, but they would shortly send an answer by messen¬ 
gers of their own. And messengers they shortly sent, Pym 
himself being the chief, who was chosen to carry up on that 
very day the impeachment of Strafford for high treason. Dr. 
Southey calls the impeachment and the death of Strafford one 
of the deadly sins of the Long Parliament. The question may 
be asked, then, Why was Strafford impeached ? Why did he 
suffer death ? In one word, because he advised the king to 
resist his subjects, and to be so independent of and paramount 
over law, as to call in the aid of Irish forces, or any forces, to 
subdue his country : a dreadful counsel which, when we 
remember, we cannot but marvel at the apologists for its base¬ 
ness. He, without doubt, advised the king that he was now 
absolved from all rule of government, and entitled to supply 
himself out of the estates of his subjects without their consent. 
Did space permit, we ought to devote a more lengthy episode 
to the life and career of Strafford ; he was a great man, but he 
was no match for Pym. As to the wisdom of his death, we 
shall forbear to express an opinion ; he might have been 


94 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


banished, but everywhere, while he lived, he must have been 
dangerous.* Upon all this we need only dwell for the purpose 
of pointing out how Pym was the animating spirit in those 
transactions which brought about such tremendous results. It 
was after this that the king, no doubt attempting the danger¬ 
ous work of reprisals and revenge, attempted to attach Pym 
and the other members for high treason. The attempt failed 
most miserably ; but it should be remembered that when Pym 
commenced even his more aggressive career he was a moderate 
man. The king urged these men along, by his unwisdom and 
imprudence, on the course they were compelled to take ; and 
thus Pym was rapidly carried along in a course of action far 
outstripping the theoretical opinions he professed to hold. He 
insisted originally on the sanctity of the Constitution, and he 
labored to maintain it ; but, when circumstances are thrown 
into vehement agitation and strife, it becomes impossible to 
regulate action by that calm and quiet settlement of affairs dic¬ 
tated either in the stillness of the study, or when events flow 
along imperturbed by the excitements and passions of great 
party strife. 

* Those who would prosecute these studies further, should read 
Dr. John Stoughton’s volumes of the “ History of the Church under 
the Civil Wars.” They are delightful reading, but he sums up 
against the policy of Strafford’s death. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES. 

But before this time Cromwell had foreseen the destinies of 
the contest, and from among the freeholders and their sons in 
his own neighborhood he formed his immortal troop of Iron¬ 
sides, those men who in many a well-fought field turned the 
tide of conflict, men who “ jeopardized their lives on the high 
places of the field. ’ ’ These men were peculiarly moulded ; 
their training was even more religious than military ; they 
were men of position and character. Oliver preached to them, 
prayed with them, directed their vision to all the desperate and 
difficult embroilments of the times. These men were Puritans 
all ; Independents ; men who, however painful it may be to 
our more Christian notions, used their Bible as a matchlock, 
and relieved their guard by revolving texts of Holy Writ, and 
refreshed their courage by draughts from God’s Book. 

Oliver said, at a later time, he saw that all the cavaliers were 
a dissipated, godless race of men ; there could be no hope for 
success but in religious and godly men. He allied the cause of 
Puritanism to such an enthusiasm, such a blaze of martial 
glory, that indeed they could be no other than irresistible. 
They grasped the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God ; they 
held communion with the skies, these men. What ! shall we 
compare Tancreds, and Ivanhoes, and Red Cross Knights with 
these realities, this band of Puritan Havelocks ? Not soldiers 
of a tournament were they ; in very deed fighting against 
“ principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high 
places theirs was a piety exasperated to enthusiasm, and 
blazing at last into warlike vehemence ! Then the Civil War 
was up in earnest, and Oliver soon found work. Since the last 
civil wars, the battles of the Roses, several generations had 
passed away, and England had grown in wealth and power ; 


96 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


but widely different were the interests represented by the two 
contests to the mind : this was the struggle, indeed, with the 
last faint life of feudalism. In some sort the contest of the 
city and the castle was represented even by the Wars of the 
Roses ; but much more here, and hence over the whole land 
soon passed the echoes of strife. Old villages that had slept 
quietly for centuries beneath the shadow of the church spire or 
tower ; old halls, famous for the good cheer and merry songs 
of roistering Christmas time ; fields, spreading wide with the 
rich herbage, and green meadow-land—all these were dyed with 
blood. The river that had for ages crept lazily along through 
the woodland became choked with the bodies of the dead and 
crimsoned with the blood of the slain. Winding round many 
a graceful bend of the road, where nature had touched the 
scene with tenderness, the Roundhead, clad in iron, saw the 
waving plume of Cavalier. Soon the two straggling parties 
were locked in deadly conflict, and the spot became memorable 
for ages for the blood shed in a skirmish which could not be 
dignified by the name of a battle. Throughout the land 
family ties were severed ; everywhere “ a man’s foes were of 
his own household.” “ Old armor came down from a thou¬ 
sand old walls, and clanked upon the anvil of every village 
smithy “ boot and saddle !” was the order of the day and 
night; every buff coat, and every piece of steel that could 
turn, or deal a blow, became of value. Even the long-bow, 
the brown bill, and cross-bow, resumed their almost forgotten 
use ; rude spears, and common staves, and Danish clubs 
assumed the rank of weapons. The trumpets of the Cavaliers 
rang out fearlessly through the half of England, and thrilled 
the spirits of the people with the cries of loyalty ; responded 
to by the shrill blast of the Roundhead, and the cry of liberty. 
“ Those,” says Carlyle, “ were the most confused months 
England ever saw ;” in every shire, in every parish, in court¬ 
houses, ale-houses, churches, and markets, wheresoever men 
were gathered together. England was, with sorrowful confu¬ 
sion in every fibre, tearing itself into hostile halves, to carry on 


THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES. 


97 


the voting by pike and bullet henceforth. The spirit of war 
stalked forth ; many times we find the record of men who slew 
an enemy, and found a parent in the corpse they were about to 
spoil. The face of nature became changed, and peaceful 
homesteads and quiet villages assumed a rough, hostile look ; 
and the old familiar scene rang with the fatal, fascinating 
bugle-notes of war. Every house of strength became a for¬ 
tress, and every household a garrison. 

Romance and poetry have woven gay garlands and sung 
highly wrought and glowing melodies around the achievements 
of knighthood and chivalry ; but romance and poetry shrink 
back startled and appalled before the deeds of the mighty 
Puritan heroes, the Ironsides of Cromwell, a race of Artegals, 
or Men in Iron. The carnal mind of the succeeding century 
has succeeded in defacing the features and soiling the fair fame 
of the knighthood of Puritanism ; but do you not think that 
the soldiers of the Cross may deserve words as eloquent, and 
song as soul-kindling, as those which echoed around the rabble 
rout of the strange Red Cross knights of Norman feudalism ? 

While all these events were passing, we can very well believe 
that the clear eye of Cromwell saw where it must all shortly 
terminate ; that, in fact, there was nothing for it but a battle¬ 
field ; and he was among the most prompt and decisive of all 
the actors. His genius was too bold, too clear-sighted, to 
shine in the mazes of debate and the labyrinths of legal techni¬ 
cality. The battles against the king, with lawyers and verbal 
hair-splitters, were best fought by Pym and Hampden ; but 
outside, in the affairs of the camp, and in that legislation that 
depends on a swift, clear eye and a strong, rapid arm—Crom¬ 
well was the man ! He distributed arms in the town of Cam¬ 
bridge, which he represented. He raised a troop of horse out 
of that county and Huntingdonshire ; and as soon as he re¬ 
ceived his commission as captain he began his career of con¬ 
quest. It is believed that here he struck the first severe blows 
at the Royal party ; for he seized the magazine of Cambridge 
for the use of Parliament ; and by stopping a quantity of plate 


98 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


on its way from the University to the king at York, he cut off 
the expected supplies. He utterly prevented the raising of a 
force for the king in the eastern counties, and arrested the 
High Sheriff of Hertfordshire at the very moment the latter 
was about to publish the proclamation of the king, declaring 
“ the Parliament commanders all traitors !” The discipline of 
his troops, their bravery, and their sobriety, have been the ad¬ 
miration of men ever since. 

It was about this time that the appellations of “ Cavalier” and 
“ Roundhead ” came into general use to denote the opposite 
parties. The former, it is well known, designated the king’s 
friends ; and of the origin of the latter, Mrs. Hutchinson gives 
the following account : 

“ When Puritanism grew into a faction, the zealots distin¬ 
guished themselves, both men and women, by several affections 
of habit, looks, and words, which, had it been a real declension 
of vanity, and embracing of sobriety in all those things, had 
been most commendable in them. 

“ Among other affected habits, few of the Puritans, what 
degree soever they were of, wore their hair long enough to 
cover their ears ; and the ministers and many others cut it close 
round their heads, with so many little peaks, as was something 
ridiculous to behold. From this custom of wearing their hair, 
that name of ‘ Roundhead ’ became the scornful term given to 
the whole Parliament party ; whose armj 7 indeed marched out 
so, but as if they had been sent out only till their hair was 
grown. Two or three years afterward, however,” she contin¬ 
ues (the custom, it may be presumed, having declined), “ any 
stranger that had seen them would have inquired the reason of 
that name.” 

These explanations have been introduced here because it has 
been usual to give the epithet “ Roundhead ” to Cromwell’s 
soldiers on account of the shape of the helmet. Nothing can 
be more erroneous. The more usual term given to these sol¬ 
diers immediately beneath Cromwell’s own command, was 
“ Ironsides.” It is very important to notice the training of 


THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES. 


99 


these men, for they again and again turned the tide of battle. 
They were not ordinary men ; they were mostly freeholders, 
or freeholders’ sons—men who thought as Cromwell thought, 
and over whom he had acquired an influence, from their resid¬ 
ing in his neighborhood. To all of them the Civil War was 
no light game ; it was a great reality ; it was a battle, not for 
^carnal so much as spiritual things, and they went forth and 
fought therefor. 

Hence 44 I was,” says Cromwell, 44 a person that, from my 
first employment, was suddenly preferred and lifted up from 
lesser trusts to greater, from my first being a captain of a troop 
of horse ; and I did labor (as well as I could) to discharge my 
trust, and God helped me as it pleased Him, and I did truly 
and plainly, and then in a way of foolish simplicity (as it was 
judged by very great and wise men, and good men, too) de¬ 
sire to make my instruments to help me in this work ; and I 
will deal plainly with you. I had a very worthy friend then, 
and he was a very noble person, and I know his memory is 
very grateful to all, Mr. John Hampden. At my first going 
out into this engagement, I saw their men were beaten at every 
hand ; I did indeed, and desired him that he would make 
some additions to my Lord Essex’s army of some new regi¬ 
ments, and I told him I would be serviceable to him in bring¬ 
ing such men in as I thought had a spirit that would do some¬ 
thing in the work. This is very true that I tell you, God knows 
I lie not ; 4 Your troops,’ said I, 4 are most of them old decayed 
serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows ; and,’ 
said I, 4 their troops are gentlemen’s sons, younger sons, and 
persons of quality ; do you think that the spirits of such base 
and mean fellows will be ever able to encounter gentlemen, that 
have honor and courage and resolution in them ? ’ Truly, I 
presented him in this manner conscientiously, and truly did I 
tell him, 4 You must get men of spirit. And take it not ill 
what I say (I know you will not), of a spirit that is likely to 
go on as far as gentlemen will go, or else I am sure you will be 
beaten still ; 9 I told him so ? I did truly. He was a wise and 


100 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


worthy person, and he did think that I talked a good notion, 
but an impracticable one ; truly I told him I could do some¬ 
what in it ; I did so ; and truly I must need say that to you 
(impart it to what you please), I raised such men as had the fear 
of God before them, and made some conscience of what they 
did, and from that day forward, I must say to you, they were 
never beaten, and wherever they engaged against the enemy, 
they beat continually. ’ ’ * 

How decisive a proof is this of Cromwell’s genius, this 
enlisting the religious enthusiasm of the country on the side of 
the Parliament ; thus fronting the idea of lofty birth with 
Divine ancestry—loyalty to the king, with loyalty to God—im¬ 
mense possessions, with heirship to a Divine inheritance—and 
obedience to the laws and prerogative of the monarch, with 
obedience to those truths unengraven on the “ tables of stone,” 
but written by the Divine Spirit on “ the fleshly table of the 
heart,” in the heroism of discipline, and faith, and prayer. 

‘‘ As for Noll Cromwell,” said the editor of a newspaper of 
the day (the then celebrated Marchmont Needham), with to the 
full as much truth as intended sarcasm, “he is gone forth in 
the might of his spirit, with all his train of disciples ; every one 
of whom is as David, a man of war and a prophet ; gifted men 
all, that resolve to do their work better than any of the sons of 
Levi.” “At his first entrance into the wars,” observes the 
Reliquiae Baxteriana , “ being but captain of horse, he had 
especial care to get religious men into his troop ; these men 
were of greater understanding than common soldiers, and 
therefore were more apprehensive of the importance and conse¬ 
quences of the war. By this means, indeed, he sped better 
than he expected. Hereupon he got a commission to take 
some care of the associated counties ; where he brought his 
troop into a double regiment of fourteen full troops, and all 
these as full of religious men as he could get 5 these, having 
more than ordinary wit and resolution, had more than ordinary 
success. ’ ’ 

* See “Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches." 


THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES. 101 

But Cromwell himself has given to us the history of these 
immortal troops ; he tells us how he saw that the Parliamen¬ 
tarians must have been beaten unless a better race of men could 
be raised—men who w T ould match the high notions of chivalry 
and loyalty, and overreach them with a nobler and worthier 
feeling. Cromwell plainly saw that, even in battles, it is not 
brute force that masters, but invincible honor and integrity, 
and faith in the purity and truth of the cause. 

“ But, not contenting himself with the mere possession of 
religion in his men, ‘ he used them daily to look after, feed, 
and dress their horses ; taught them to clean and keep their 
arms bright, and have them ready for service ; to choose the 
best armor, and arm themselves to the best advantage.’ Upon 
fitting occasions, and in order to inurd\ their bodies to the ser¬ 
vice of the field, he also made them sleep together upon the 
hare ground ; and one day, before they actually met the 
enemy, tried their courage by a stratagem. Leading them into 
a pretended ambuscade, he caused his seeming discovery of 
danger to be attended with all the ‘ noise, pomp, and circum¬ 
stance ’ of a surrounding foe. Terrified at which, about 
twenty of the troop turned their backs and fled ; and these he 
directly dismissed, desiring them, however, to leave their 
horses for such as would fight the Lord’s battles in their stead. 
Thus trained, when the contest really ensued, Cromwell’s 
horse ‘ excelled all their fellow-soldiers in feats of war, and 
obtained more victories oven the enemy.’ And if they excelled 
them in courage, so did they also in civility, order, and disci¬ 
pline. The Court journal, indeed, the Mercurius Aulicus, 
charged them with many cruelties and excesses, of which every 
circumstance proves the maliciousness and falsehood. For, 
while a very large number of the king’s party, in sober truth, 
gave themselves up to every species of debauchery in their own 
persons, and to all manner of spoliation of the peaceable inhab¬ 
itants, of whom they speedily became the terror and detesta¬ 
tion, another contemporary print justly said of Cromwell’s sol¬ 
diers, 4 No man swears, but he pays his twelve-pence ; if ho be 


102 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


drunk, lie is set in the stocks, or worse ; if one calls the other 
Roundhead, he is cashiered ; insomuch, that the counties 
where they come leap for joy of them, and come in and join 
them. How happy were it if all the forces were thus disci¬ 
plined. ’ ” 

Nor will the reader fail to notice the practical eye, the fiery 
sincerity of this man. 

“ He told them,” says Forster, u that he would not seek to 
perplex them (since other officers, he had heard, instructed 
their troops in the nice legal fictions of their civil superiors in 
Parliament) with such and such phrases as fighting for king 
and Parliament ; it was for the Parliament alone they were 
now marching into military service ; for himself, he declared 
that if he met King Charles in the body of the enemy, he 
would as soon discharge his pistol upon him as upon any 
private man ; and for any soldier present, therefore, who was 
troubled with a conscience that might not let him do the like, 
he advised him to quit the service he was engaged in. A 
terrible shout of determined zeal announced no deserter on that 
score, and on marched Cromwell and his Ironsides—then the 
seed, and soon after the flower, of that astonishing army, 
which even Lord Clarendon could describe as ‘ one to which 
victory was entailed, and which, humbly speaking, could 
hardly fail of conquest whithersoever led—an army whose 
order and discipline, whose sobriety and manners, whose cour¬ 
age and success, made it famous and terrible all over the 
world.’ ” 

Can our readers conceive these men ? The writer is very 
desirous that they should do so ; for they were the genius of 
the army. Let them be compared with Rupert and his 
soldiers. Prince Rupert, called also “ Prince Robber”—called 
also “ The Son of Plunder.” We shall dwell at length upon 
this chief captain of Charles’s army presently. These patro¬ 
nymics suggest very different reflections from those in which we 
have just indulged in reference to the Ironsides. Wherever 
the Cavaliers went, they were a scourge and a curse. In 


THE TRAINING OF THE IRONSIDES. 103 

Gloucester, in Wilts, what histories have we of them and their 
depredations. They were, for the most part apparently, an 
undisciplined rabble, without bravery or determination, if we 
except their officers ; and we shall see, from the course of the 
history, that Rupert was a madcap prince, and his imprudence 
the worst enemy Charles had, next to his own. 

There is nothing more remarkable, in the course of this civil 
war, than the fact that men who had just come from the 
market and plough, should meet the Cavaliers on their own 
ground and defeat them. The Royalists prided themselves on 
their military character ; war was their trade and their boast ; 
swordsmen, they professed to be skilled in all the discipline 
and practice of the field. It was their ancestral character ; it 
was the crest and crown of their feudalism, and, defeated in 
war, they had nothing further to boast of. How was it ? The 
history we have given in some degree explains it ; but the 
principal reason, after all, is found in the higher faith. Look 
at the watchwords of the two armies as they rushed on to 
conflict : “ Truth and Peace V 9 “ God is with us !” “ The 

Lord of Hosts !” such mottoes contrast favorably with “ The 
King and Queen Mary !” u Hey ! for Cavaliers !” or even 
that of u The Covenant !” These men charged in battle as if 
beneath the eye of God ; to them it was no play, but business ; 
they knew that they rushed on, many of them, to their death, 
but they heeded not, for their spirit’s eye caught visions of 
waiting chariots of fire, and horses of fire, hovering round the 
field ; and they advanced to the conflict, mingling with the 
roar of musketry and the clash of steel the sound of psalms 
and spiritual songs. 

How little have these men been known. The novelist has 
delighted in decorating the tombs of their antagonists, but has 
cared little for them. Romance has spread its canvas, and 
Poetry her colors, to celebrate the deeds of Rupert and his 
merry men. Has it been ignorance ? or that disposition of 
the human spirit which refuses to see the lofty piety and 
determined heroism of a religious soul ? Looked at from that 


104 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


point of view from which most men would regard them, the 
Puritans, and the soldiers who fought the battles for them, 
must seem to be fanatics ; for they believed steadily in another 
world, and lived and fought perpetually as beneath its influ¬ 
ence. Of course every one individually was not such an one ; 
but we judge of things by wholes—“ by their fruit ye shall 
know them.” What was their general character? It is not 
wonderful that we detect in them some exaggeration—a lofty 
spiritual pride, inflation of speech, hardness, insensibility to 
human passion. The school in which they were trained was 
a very severe one ; their rules were binding by a most impres¬ 
sive authority. Let the man who would judge them, look at 
them not from the delineations of Sir Walter Scott, or James, 
but from the period in which they lived, from the circum¬ 
stances by which their characters were fashioned and made, 
and to the men to whom they looked as leaders ; or let him 
take the chronicles of the time, and he will be at no loss to 
spell out the glory of their name, “ their enemies themselves 
being judges.” We have already said romance has had it all 
its own way in depicting the Royalist and the Cavalier ; to 
them have been given all the glow of the novelist, all the 
charm of the poet. We are just now beginning to do justice 
to the usages and manners of Puritan households, with which 
sweetness and romance, domestic tenderness and grace have 
been supposed to be incompatible ; yet Puritan womanhood is 
one of the fairest of types, and far lovelier to the true artist’s 
eye than any of the luscious lips and dainty love-locks which 
shed their meretricious charms over the canvases of Sir Peter 
Lely. We like to imagine those old country houses, the 
manors and mansions, up and down whose staircases of polished 
oak, Puritan wives and maidens were handed by wealthy 
husbands and ambitious lovers. It is singular to realize the 
regular family worship there ; the presence of superstitious 
belief when men and women believed themselves to be nearer 
to a universe of invisible and mysterious influences than they 
do now ; and stories and traditions of witchcraft and appari- 


THE TRAINING OE THE IRONSIDES. 


105 


tions haunted the houses. The houses of those times were 
certainly romantic, and tenanted by a noteworthy race, even 
though, stepping from the household into the church, our 
sentiments are somewhat shocked by the undecorated service 
the Puritans loved to follow ; and its chancels and aisles 
presenting the staid and unornamented appearance of those we 
know in Geneva, or Zurich, or Berne, only that no choir or 
organ was permitted to aid the song. 


CHAPTER VII. 


Cromwell’s contemporaries : john hampden. 

Among the great names, shining with a very conspicuous 
lustre during this period of civil conflict, perhaps no name has 
commanded since a more universal interest, and even homage^ 
than that of Cromwell’s cousin, John Hampden. He was the 
representative of an ancient and highly honorable county 
family in Buckinghamshire ; for centuries they had taken their 
name from their habitation, Great Hampden, in that county. 
William Hampden married the aunt of the Protector, Crom¬ 
well ; he was the father of the patriot. The history of this 
Elizabeth Cromwell was a singular one : her husband died in 
the year 1597, she continued a widow until her death, sixty- 
seven years after, and she was buried in Great Hampden 
Church, 1664-5, having lived to the great age of ninety. It 
is surely affecting to think of the singular revolutions through 
which this lady passed ; her years extended through the reigns 
of six sovereigns. She saw the great line of the Tudors expire, 
with her royal namesake Elizabeth ; she saw the British sceptre 
united with that of the Scottish beneath James I.; she saw the 
trembling sceptre in the hand of Charles I., and beheld it 
wrested by the people from that weak and impolitic hand ; she 
saw those men who had overawed the king, and conducted him 
to the scaffold, compelled to bow before, and see their sover¬ 
eignty shivered to pieces in the presence of, her mighty 
nephew as he ascended the Protector’s throne ; she saw his 
power bequeathed to his incapable son, her great-nephew, 
Richard ; and she beheld him driven into private life by the 
men of “ the Rump” of the Long Parliament, whom her illus¬ 
trious nephew had packed about their business ; she saw those 
very men who had been so ignominiously deposed, those self- 
restored republicans, revive the monarchy by the restoration 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : JOHN HAMPDEN. 


107 


of Charles II. to the throne, so inaugurating the most disgrace¬ 
ful and shameful reign which desecrates the annals of our 
country’s history. 

What an affecting succession of national vicissitudes ! She 
had two sons : Richard was the youngest, he survived his 
brother, dying in 1659. He appears to have been of the same 
patriotic faith and practice, but probably a comparatively 
weak man ; he was one of the Council of Richard Cromwell. 
The Hampden was John. This youth received the natural 
training of an English gentleman of those days at a school in 
Thame. In 1609 he entered as a commoner at Magdalen 
College, Oxford, where certainly his attainments must have 
obtained for him some reputation ; for it is a remarkable fact 
that he was chosen by Laud apparently, then master of St. 
John’s, to write the gratulations of Oxford upon the 
marriage of the Elector Palatine with the Princess Elizabeth, 
the marriage which gave birth to Prince Rupert, who led the 
troops at Chalgrove Field, on which Hampden was slain ! 
Hampden married in 1619, and his marriage seems to have 
been singularly happy ; but he did not retain his wife long. 
He first represented the old borough of Grampound, in the 
eighteenth year of the reign of King James I.; then he 
represented Wendover, in the two Parliaments in the first and 
third years of the reign of Charles I.; but in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth years of the same reign he sat for the county of 
Buckinghamshire. His family was so eminent—it traced itself 
in unbroken line from the earliest Saxon times, and derived 
even its name and possessions from Edward the Confessor— 
that it is not singular that his mother was very desirous that he 
should increase the family dignity by attaining to that to which 
it would have been easy to attain, the peerage. This was 
before the great troubles set in. Hampden seems to have had 
no ambition of this kind, and saw clearly that the sphere in 
which he could most effectively serve his country was the 
House of Commons ; and, in his rank as a country gentleman, 
he was perhaps equal in the several particulars of wealth, 


108 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


lineage, and intelligence to any commoner there. To the 
impressions of the present writer the character of Hampden 
seems to shine out with singular clearness, but many writers 
have affected to charge him with the indulgence of ambitious 
rather than patriotic motives in the great struggle. This arises 
from the fact of the deep secretiveness of his character, a 
characteristic in which he was perhaps the equal of his mighty 
cousin, and, indeed, had he been preserved to the close of the 
war, the course of events after might have been different. He 
had far more practical sagacity, a far profounder knowledge of 
what the nation needed, than either Sir Harry Vane, Algernon 
Sidney, or Bradshaw. He was not an extreme man ; he was 
probably, no more than Cromwell, a dreaming, theoretical 
republican. He desired to save the kingdom from the doom 
of intolerant and arbitrary government in Church and State ; 
and as an upright member of Parliament, he threw himself at 
once into the struggle. He may be almost spoken of as 
certainly one of the very first who stood forward, with resolu¬ 
tion and courage, as the champion of liberty, defying the sover¬ 
eign in law, and denying his right to levy ship-money. He 
stood in the pathway of exorbitant power ; he refused to pay 
a tax—trifling to him—because it was levied by the king with¬ 
out the consent of Parliament. He appealed to the laws, and 
he brought the question to a trial. 

The Long Parliament has been called the fatal Parliament. 
It protected itself at once against dissolution by resolving that 
it would only be dissolved by its own act ; for it had been 
abundantly proved that “ with Charles no Parliament could be 
safe, much less useful to the country, that did not begin by 
taking the whole power of government into its own hands.”* 
To this Parliament Hampden’s was a double return, for Wen- 
dover and for his own county of Buckinghamshire. He elect¬ 
ed to sit for the latter ; and it soon became very clear that this 
Parliament represented the indignation of a whole people 


* Lord Nugent’s “Life of John Hampden.” 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES .* JOHN HAMPDEN. 


109 


thoroughly determined to redress long existing and grievous 
wrongs. We have sufficiently referred to this in preceding 
pages. Hampden was not a fierce or fiery spirit ; indeed, both 
Hampden himself and the men by whom he was surrounded 
were characters not very easily read. Charles was as unequal 
to a conflict with them as a child. They had to deal with a 
man, the son of one who esteemed himself to be a specially 
adroit master in dissimulation, and who had certainly left to 
his son, as a legacy, his lessons and experiences in king-craft. 
We have seen that with Charles it was impossible to be clear 
or true ; dissimulation was the weapon by which he had sought 
to circumvent the tactics of the great leaders. They were 
compelled to use the same weapons, and th6y vanquished 
him. Hume, speaking of Hampden and Sir Harry Yane, and 
including, of course, Cromwell, says, u Their discourse was 
polluted with mysterious jargon, and full of the lowest and 
most vulgar hypocrisy.” The hypocrisy which Hume charges 
on Hampden and his fellow-workers amounts to no more than 
that they were men thoroughly determined not to be circum¬ 
vented, and to knock away the entire scaffolding which went 
to the support of arbitrary and illegal power ; and they illus¬ 
trated this at once, in resolving on the indissolubility of their 
own Parliament, and the impeachment which led to the death 
of Strafford. Inevitably the sword was unsheathed in the 
nation. May, in his “ History of the Long Parliament,” says, 
“ The fire when once kindled cast forth, through every corner of 
the land, not only sparks but devouring flames ; insomuch that 
the kingdom of England was divided into more seats of war 
than counties, nor had she more fields than skirmishes, nor 
cities than sieges ; and almost all the palaces of lords, and other 
great houses, were turned everywhere into garrisons of war. 
Throughout England sad spectacles were seen of plundering and 
firing villages ; and the fields, otherwise waste and desolate, 
were rich only, and terribly glorious, in camps and armies.” 

Now comes a third great period of Hampden’s life ; for his 
life consists of three stages. First, when his mind was matur* 


110 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


mg its wishes and intentions, when he felt the dishonor and 
the distress of the country so much that it is said he meditated 
with Cromwell embarking for America ; then came the second 
period, when he stood forth the bold and earnest counsellor, 
attempting to avert by his wisdom the overt acts of despotism 
on the one side, and the possibility of rebellion, so called, on 
the other ; then came the third period, when, under the woody 
brows of the Chiltern Hills, he sought to marshal the militia of 
his native county. With prodigious activity, unceasingly he 
labored, and sought to form the union of the six associated 
midland counties. As might be expected from his character, 
he was mighty in organization, and he deserves the principal 
honor, perhaps, of having brought all those counties to act as 
one compacted machine. He gathered all his green-coats 
together, and formed them into a company which told with 
immense effect on the issues of the war. But he was one of 
the first who fell. It was on Sunday morning, the 18th of 
June, 1643, being in the second year of the war, he received a 
mortal wound in a skirmish on Chalgrove Field. It was near 
to the scenery of his school-boy life, Thame. It is a tradition 
that he was seen first moving in the direction of his father-in- 
law’s house at Pyrton. Thither he was wont to go, when a 
youth, courting his first wife, whom he had very tenderly 
loved ; from that house he had married her. It was thought 
that thither he would, had it been possible, have gone to die. 
But Rupert’s cavalry were covering the plain between ; so he 
rode back across the grounds of Hazeley, on his way to 
Thame. He paused at the brook which divides the parishes ; 
he was afraid to dismount, as he felt the impossibility of 
remounting if he alighted. He summoned a momentary 
strength, cleared the leap ; he was over, reaching Thame in 
great pain, and almost fainting. He found shelter in the 
house of one Ezekiel Brown, and six days after, having 
suffered cruelly, almost without intermission, he died ; but 
during those days he wrote, or dictated, letters of advice to 
the Parliament, whose affairs had not, as yet, reached that 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : JOHN HAMPDEN. 


Ill 


state of prosperity which they presently attained. Then, like 
the religious man he was, he disposed himself solemnly for 
death ; he received the Lord’s Supper shortly before he died ; 
he avowed his dislike, indeed, to the government of the 
Church of England—that of course—but his faith in her 
great doctrines ; he died murmuring in prayer, “ Lord 
Jesus !” he exclaimed in the last agony, “ receive my soul ! 0 

Lord, save my country ! O Lord, be merciful to-, ” but the 

prayer was unfinished, in that second the noble spirit passed 
away. Of course he was buried in his own parish church of 
Great Hampden ; there his dust lies in the chancel. His 
soldiers followed their great leader to the grave bareheaded, 
with reversed arms and muffled drums ; as they marched they 
sung the nineteenth Psalm, “ that lofty and melancholy 
Psalm,” says Lord Macaulay, “ in which the fragility of 
human life is contrasted with the immutablity of Him to whom 
a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is passed, or as 
a watch in the night.” The great storm of war which rolled 
over tlve» country had removed Hampden from his old house, 
and all the scenes of his early felicity. He never resided in 
Buckinghamshire after his second marriage ; his Parliamentary 
duties compelled a residence in London, and he chose what 
was then the charming suburban retreat of Gray’s Inn Lane. 
But the mansion, the ancestral home of his early days, still 
stands. From its seclusion, it is little known ; but it stands 
upon a spot of singular beauty, from whence it commands a 
view of several counties. It reposes among green glades, and 
is inclosed within the shadowy stillness of old woods of box, 
juniper, and beech lining the avenues which lead to the 
old house of manifold architectures, blending the ancient 
Norman with the style of the Tudor, and mingling with these 
the innovations of later periods. It has been thought that the 
purity of Hampden’s character might be seen in the fact that 
a spirit so quiet and so unambitious could forsake the stillness 
of so holy and beautiful a retreat, to mingle his voice amid 
the crafts and collisions of Parliament, or the wild shock of 



112 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


warfare. The story of Hampden’s life insensibly draws us to 
Samuel Rogers’ charming picture of the patriot in “ Human 
Life,” and by Hampden’s tomb we may well recur to the 
lines : 

“ Then was the drama ended. Not till then, 

So full of chance and change the lives of men. 

Could we pronounce him happy. Then secure 
From pain, from grief, and all that we endure. 

He slept in peace—say, rather, soared to Heaven, 

Upborne from earth by Him to whom ’tis given 
In His right hand to hold the golden key 
That opes the portals of Eternity. 

When by a good man’s grave I muse alone, 

Methinks an angel sits upon the stone, 

And, with a voice inspiring joy not fear, 

Says, pointing upward, ‘ Know, he is not here! * ”* 

* It almost shocks the sensibilities, even of not very sensitive per¬ 
sons, to know that from mere motives of curiosity the body of the 
great patriot was, many years since, exhumed. Hampden’s body 
was dragged from its dread abode, apparently for no other reason 
than to settle the cause of his death, which by many persons had 
been assigned to the bursting of his own pistol ; the pistol had been 
a present to him from Sir Robert Pye, his son-in-law, and tradition 
had said that when Sir Robert visited his father-in-law, in his last 
illness, Hampden said to him, “Ah ! Robin, your unhappy present 
has been my ruin !” It is certain that he met his death on the field 
as a brave man might, in the performance of his duty, and it certain¬ 
ly seems an idle and very insignificant reason, for the settlement of 
such a question, to have vexed and disturbed the repose of the sa¬ 
cred and venerable dead. However, it was done, and a copious ac¬ 
count of the disentombment was inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine 
for August, 1828. It was Lord Nugent who conducted the examina¬ 
tion, and he removed and unrolled the shroud from his venerable 
ancestor. The coffin was lifted from the vault and placed on tressels 
in the centre of the church. The examination does not appear to 
have resulted in any very distinctly satisfactory elucidations ; but 
those who are interested in such matters may find a ghastly descrip¬ 
tion of the appearance of the patriot after his long sepulture, if they 
turn back to the volume to which we have already given a reference. 
The author of the present work may be permitted to express his 
amazement that hands professing to be moved by reverence could 
engage in such an unseemly and self-imposed task. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


CROMWELL : THE BATTLE OF MARSTOK MOOR. 

It was on the field of Marston that the military genius of 
Cromwell first shone conspicuously. Marston Moor, seven 
miles from York. How came that battle to be fought at all ? 
The old city of York is a venerable city ; crowned with its 
tiara of proud towers, she stands, like an old queen, on the 
banks of the Ouse. And she has witnessed memorable things 
in the course of her history—for she has a defined history 
approaching two thousand years—but not one more memorable 
than that great fight in which, for the first time, the genius of 
Cromwell rose triumphant and complete upon the field. York, 
the old city, was in possession of the Royalists ; and so weak 
were they, that it seemed the Roundheads, who lay encamped 
before the city, must soon find an entrance there. But just 
then the fiery Rupert came plunging across the Lancashire hills, 
after his cruel massacre at Bolton. He had with him 20,000 
of the flower of the Royalist and Cavalier army ; and the 
Puritan forces drew out from York to Marston Moor. Had 
Rupert contented himself with relieving and succoring York, 
the whole tide of conflict might have been different ; but he 
did not know the strength of his foes. Charles, indeed, had 
written to him, “ If York be lost, I shall esteem ray crown to 
be little less [than lost].” There, outside of the city, lay the 
Royalist army—lay the protecting host of Rupert ; and there, 
yonder, along the moor, the armies of the Parliament. It was 
a calm summer evening, on the second of July, 1644. We 
can scarcely even now think that Rupert, in all his thoughtless¬ 
ness, could have wished to hazard a battle when the advan¬ 
tages, so decidedly his own, could only have been jeoparded 
and risked by conflict ; and yet, let us recollect that the letter 
of Charles to him was carried by him on his heart, to the day 


114 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


of his death, as his warrant for that well-fought, fatal field ; and 
as we have said, he did not know the strength of that army of 
yeomen and volunteers ; above all, he did not know Cromwell. 
The evening of the day closed in gloom, the heavens were cov¬ 
ered with clouds, thick, black, murky masses swept over the 
sky. Hymns of triumph rose from the ranks of the Round- 
heads and the Parliament, while Prince Rupert would have a 
sermon preached before him and the army ; and his chaplain 
took a text, which seemed to challenge the issue of the mor¬ 
row, from Joshua : “ The Lord God of gods, the Lord God of 
gods, He knoweth, and Israel he shall know ; if it be rebellion, 
or in transgression against the Lord, save us not this day.” 
Still, dark and gloomy, and more gloomy, fell the evening ; 
thunder muttered along the heavens, and the forked flame 
glanced on the mighty mass of iron-clad men. Between the 
two armies lay a drain. On the opposite bank to the Royalist 
forces, in the centre, stood Leven and Fairfax, the commanders 
of the Parliament ; on the left yonder, Cromwell and his Iron¬ 
sides. Rupert had, with wild, furious, characteristic energy, 
fallen upon the centre, and his life-guards had scattered and 
routed them, so that amid the storm of shot, the maddening 
shouts, the thundering hoof, pursuing and pursued, they swept 
across yonder field, cutting down remorselessly all, scattering 
the whole host like leaves before the storm-wind. Goring, the 
other Royalist general, was not idle ; his desperadoes charged 
on, and with wild, tumultuous rout they hewed down the fugi¬ 
tives by scores. Two thirds of the field were gained for 
Rupert and for Charles. Lord Fairfax was defeated. He fled 
through the field, through the hosts of the Cavaliers, who sup¬ 
posed him to be some Royalist general ; he posted on to 
Cawood Castle, arrived there, and in the almost or entirely de¬ 
serted house he unbooted and unsaddled himself, and went like 
a wise old soldier to bed. But amid all that rout, the carnage, 
and flying confusion, one man held back his troops. Crom¬ 
well, there to the left, when he saw how the whole Royalist 
force attacked the centre, restrained the fiery impatience of his 


THE BATTLE OP MARSTON MOOR. 


115 


Ironsides ; lie drew them off still farther to the left ; his eye 
blazed all on fire, till the moment he uttered his short, sharp 
passionate word to the troops, “ Charge, in the name of the 
Most High !” Beneath the clouds, beneath the storm, be¬ 
neath the night heavens flying along, he scattered the whole 
mass. We know it was wondrous to see him in those moods 
of highly-wrought enthusiasm ; and his watchword always 
struck along the ranks. “ Truth and Peace !” he thundered 
along the lines ; “ Truth and Peace !” in answer to the Royal¬ 
ist cries of “ God and the King !” “ Upon them—upon 

them !” That hitherto almost unknown man, and his im¬ 
mortal hosts of Puritans, poured upon the Cavaliers. The air 
was alive with artillery. Cromwell seized the very guns of the 
Royalists, and turned them upon themselves. Thus, when the 
Royalists returned from the scattering the one wing of their 
foes, they found the ground occupied by victors. The fight 
was fought again, but fought in vain ; in vain was Rupert’s 
rallying cry, “ For God and for the King !” Through the 
black and stormy night was seen the gleaming steel of other 
hostile lines. The Cavaliers were scattered far and wide over 
the plain—over the country ; while amid the fire, thousands of 
the dead lying there, and the shattered carriages, Rupert made 
the last effort of flying from the field to York ; across the 
bean-field, over the heath, the agonized young fiery-heart 
made his way. And there, amid the gathering silence, and 
amid the groans of the dying, rises the magnificent military 
genius of Cromwell ! 

Marston Moor was the first most decided collision of the hos¬ 
tile armies. We have given in a few touches a concise and 
succinct account of this great and momentous conflict ; but, 
even in so brief a life of Cromwell as the present, it ought not 
to be so hastily dismissed. A graphic pencil might employ 
itself in a description of the fine old city, besieged for three 
months, where provisions were growing scarce, and in whose 
beautiful minster that day—it was a Sabbath-day—affecting 
accents had given tender pathos to the liturgies imploring aid 


116 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


from Heaven. It would be no difficult task to realize and de¬ 
scribe the streets of the ancient and magnificent city as they 
were on that day, and if Rupert had been wise, it seems as if 
the city might have been relieved and Cromwell’s great oppor¬ 
tunity lost; but the two vast ironclad masses lay out beyond 
there—nearly fifty thousand men, all natives of the same soil— 
stretching away almost to Tadcaster—skirting Bramham Moor, 
upon which, ages before Mother Shipton had prophesied that a 
great battle would be fought—a prophecy which, in this in¬ 
stance, received very creditable approximation to fulfilment. 
It was, as we have said, on the 2d of July, 1644. The day 
wore on while successive movements and counter movements 
took place. Scarcely a shot had been fired. When both 
armies were completely drawn up, it was after five in the even¬ 
ing, and nearly another hour and a half passed with little more 
than a few cannon shots. The lazy and nonchalant Newcastle 
considered all was over for that day, and had retired to his 
carriage, to prepare himself by rest for whatever might betide 
on the morrow. Even Rupert and Cromwell are believed to 
have expected that their armies would pass the night on the 
field. It was a bright summer evening, closing apparently in 
storm ; there was light enough still for the work of destruction 
to proceed, and that mighty host—46,000 men, children of 
one race, subjects of one king—to mingle in bloody strife, and 
lay thousands at rest, “ to sleep the sleep that knows no wak¬ 
ing,” on that fatal night in July, on Long Marston Moor. It 
has been surmised, with considerable probability, that a stray 
cannon shot, which proved fatal to young Walton, Oliver 
Cromwell’s nephew, by rousing in him every slumbering feel¬ 
ing of wrath and indignation, mainly contributed to bring on 
the general engagement. Certain it is that he was the first to 
arrange his men for decisive attack. We suppose it was during 
the period of inaction, in the evening that Prince Rupert ex¬ 
amined a stray prisoner whom his party had taken, as to who 
were the leaders of the opposing army ; the man answered, 
“ General Leven, Lord Fairfax, and Sir Thomas Fairfax.” 


THE BATTLE OF MABSTOH MOOB. 


117 


“ Is Cromwell there ?” exclaimed the Prince, interrupting 
him ; and being answered that he was, “ Will they fight ?” 
said he ; “if they will, they shall have fighting enough.” 
Then the prisoner was released, and going back to his own 
army told the generals what had passed, and Cromwell that the 
Prince had asked for him in particular, and had said, “ They 
should have fighting enough.” “ And,” exclaimed Cromwell, 

“ if it please God, so they shall !” 

It was, then, within a quarter to seven on that evening of 
July, when the vast army, that spread along the wide area of 
Marston Moor, began to be stirred by rapid movements to the 
front. Along a considerable part of the ground that lay imme¬ 
diately between the advanced posts of the Parliamentary forces, 
there ran a broad and deep ditch, which served to protect either 
party from sudden surprise. Toward this, it has been said by 
some that a body of Cromwell’s cavalry was seen to move rap¬ 
idly from the rear, followed by a part of the infantry. Prince 
Rupert met this promptly by bringing up a body of musket¬ 
eers, who opened on them a murderous fire as they formed in 
front of the ditch which protected Rupert’s musketeers from 
the cavalry, while a range of batteries advantageously planted 
on a height to the rear kept up an incessant cannonading on 
the whole line. 

It was the first meeting of Cromwell and Rupert. And on 
Cromwell, as we have seen, descends the glory of the victory. 
His eye detected the movements in the Royalist army. He 
and his Ironsides (first named Ironsides on this famous field) 
broke the cavalry of General Goring. The Scots, indeed, had 
been defeated by Rupert early in the battle. He poured upon 
them a torrent of irresistible fire. But while he was confident 
that the field was won, the Ironsides again poured over Rupert’s 
own cavalry, and swept them from the field. 

The victory was complete, the Royalist army was entirely 
broken and dispersed ; fifteen hundred of their number 
remained prisoners. The whole of their arms and artillery, 
their tents, baggage and military chest remained the spoils of 


118 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the victors. Prince Rupert’s own standard, and more than a 
hundred others, had fallen into their hands ; and York, which 
Rupert had entered only three days before in defiance of their 
arms, now lay at their mercy. A strange and fearful scene 
spread out beneath the sky on that summer, now dark with mid¬ 
night storm, on Long Marston Moor. Five thousand men lay 
dead or dying there ; born of the same lineage, and subjects of 
one king, who had yet fallen by one another’s hands. It was 
the bloodiest battle of the whole war, and irretrievably ruined 
the king’s hopes in the north. 

Long after midnight, Rupert and Newcastle re-entered York. 
They exchanged messages without meeting, Rupert intimating 
his intention of departing southward on the following morning 
with as many of the horse and foot as he had kept together ; 
and Newcastle returning word that he intended immediately to 
go to the sea-side, and embark for the Continent—a desertion 
rendered justifiable when we remember that his advice had 
been contemptuously slighted, and his command superseded by 
the rash nephew of Charles, acting under the king’s orders. 
Each kept his word, and in a fortnight thereafter York was in 
possession of their opponents. 

Many representatives of noble houses lay stretched stark and 
cold on the dreadful field. The eminent Roman Catholic 
family of Townley, of Burnley, in Lancashire, have a tradition 
of the day. Mary, daughter of Sir Francis Trapper, had mar¬ 
ried Charles Townley ; he was one of those killed in this bat¬ 
tle. During the engagement, his wife was with her father at 
Knaresborough ; there she heard of her husband’s fate, and 
came upon the field the next morning to search for his body, 
while the attendants of the camp were stripping and burying 
the dead. Here she was accosted by a general officer, to whom 
she told her melancholy story ; he heard her with great tender¬ 
ness, but he earnestly implored her to leave the scene not only 
so distressing to witness, but where she might also herself be 
insulted. She complied, and he called for a trooper, mounted 
her on horseback in the trooper’s company, and sent her back 


THE BATTLE OF MARSTOIT HOOR. 


119 


in safety to Knaresborough. Inquiring of the trooper, on the 
way, the name of the officer to whom she had been indebted, 
she learned that it was Cromwell ! This story is preserved in 
the archives of the Townley family. She survived, a widow, 
until 1690 ; died at Townley, and was buried at Burnley at the 
age of ninety-one. 

And here is a letter from Cromwell, full of tenderness. The 
strong man could weep with those who wept. And you notice, 
although he had turned on that field the fortunes of England, 
he makes no mention of himself, nor any mention of a severe 
wound he had received in the neck. D’Aubigne says it bears 
indubitable marks of a soldier’s bluntness, but also of the syrm 
pathy of a child of God. In Oliver these two elements were 
never far apart. It was addressed to his brother-in-lawpCol- 
onel Valentine Walton, the husband of his younger sister Mar¬ 
garet, and contained the account of the victory, and of his own 
son’s being among the slain, the same whose fate, it is thought, 
by rousing Oliver to the charging point, brought on the gen¬ 
eral engagement. 

“ 5th July, 1644. 

“ Dear Sir, —It’s our duty to sympathize in all mercies, 
and to praise the Lord together in all chastisements or trials, so 
that we may sorrow together. 

“ Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great 
favor from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such 
as the like never was since this war began. It had all the evi¬ 
dence of an absolute victory, obtained, by the Lord’s blessing, 
upon the godless party principally. We never charged but we 
routed the enemy. The left wing, which I commanded, being 
our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the 
prince’s horse. God made them as stubble to our swords. 
We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed 
all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now ; but I 
believe, of twenty thousand, the prince hath not four thousand 
left. Give glory, all the glory, to God. 

“ Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon 


120 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut 
off, whereof he died. 

“ Sir, you know my own trials this way ; but the Lord sup¬ 
ported me in this—that the Lord took him * into the happiness 
we all pant for, and live for. There is your precious child full 
of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a 
gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His 
comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort, that to 
Frank Russel and myself he could not express it—‘ it was so 
great above his pain. ’ This he said to us. Indeed it was ad¬ 
mirable. A little after he said, one thing lay upon his spirit. 
I asked him what that was ? He told me it was, that God had 
not suffered him to be any more the executioner of His ene¬ 
mies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and, 
as I am informed, three horses more, I am told he bid them 
open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. 
Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the army, of all that knew 
him. But few knew him, for he was a precious young man, 
fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glori¬ 
ous saint in heaven, wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. 
Let this drink up your sorrow, seeing these are not feigned 
words to comfort you, but the thing is so real and undoubted 
a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. 
Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public 
mercy to the Church of God make you to forget your private 
sorrow. The Lord be your strength ; so prays 

“ Your truly faithful and loving brother, 

“ Oliver Cromtwell. 

“ My love to your daughter, and my cousin Percival, sister 
Desbrow, and all friends with you. ” 

Thus ended the battle of Marston Moor. It was the most 
decisive blow Charles had yet received ; but far from being so 
decisive now as it might have been. We have again to notice 
the indecision of the generals, Earls Manchester and Essex. 

* His own son, Oliver, who had been killed not long before. 


THE BATTLE OF MARSTOiT MOOR. 


121 


Nearly half the kingdom was in the possession of the Parlia¬ 
mentary party. The reasons for this vacillation it may be now 
well to notice. The nobility—it began ere this time to appear— 
notwithstanding they had very generally come into the earlier 
measures of opposition to Charles’s government, both from 
their old hereditary jealousy of the Crown, and unusual oppres¬ 
sions and neglects ever since the accession of Henry II., were 
every day becoming more convinced that they had unwittingly 
contributed to place the people, under the guidance of their 
Commons’ House, upon such a footing of equality with them¬ 
selves as had already engendered rivalry, and threatened mas¬ 
tership. They had now, therefore, every disposition possible 
to coalesce with the Scots in entering into a peace with The 
king that should at once secure him in the possession of his 
“ just power and greatness,” and confirm in themselves those 
privileges of rank and birth whose best support, next to that of 
legitimate popular freedom, they saw to be legitimate mo¬ 
narchical prerogative. But they went much farther ; for the 
Earls of Essex and Manchester, who had been intrusted with 
the command of the Parliament’s forces, and who might be 
said to be the representatives of the great body of the nobles 
with the army, had seemed, since the battle of Marston Moor, 
to neutralize the efforts of their soldiers, as though they were 
unwilling to make the popular cause too eminent ; and, though 
not actually to allow themselves to be beaten by the king, to 
make little advantage of his failures, and occasionally even to 
permit him to avail himself of a drawn battle, or a positive de¬ 
feat, as though it had been to him a victory. Owing to these 
causes, it had become apparent that the Parliament, instead of 
approaching the state of things they so much desired, and by 
which they had once hoped effectually to give law to their 
sovereign, were even yet losing ground in the contest. Essex 
endured a complete and total failure. He allowed himself to 
be pushed on to the west, until, disbanding his troops, he took 
boat from Plymouth, and escaped to London, where, however, 
he was well received by the. Parliament. Meantime Cromwell 


122 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


and Manchester were together in Berkshire, and Manchester 
had certainly met with precisely the same success but for 
Cromwell. As it was, the latter could only partially secure the 
success of the Parliament, because compelled to act under the 
command of the Earl. Newbury had already been the scene of 
one contest ; its neighborhood was destined to be the scene of 
another. It might have been decisive. Cromwell saw this, 
and he implored Manchester to allow him to make an effort to 
prostrate the king ; but the earl refused. It was a golden op¬ 
portunity, this, for retrieving all the losses of Essex, and finish¬ 
ing the campaign gloriously—so gloriously began by the battle 
of Marston Moor. The event of this skirmish, too, convinces 
us that had Charles more frequently commanded in person, he 
would more frequently have been victor. 

It was a moonlight night following the fight of Donnington. 
The ground all round was strewed with dead bodies ; and the 
day closed, leaving it in possession of the Royalists. They 
occupied a central position, well fortified by nature and by art : 

“ It was a moonlight night which followed, and anxious 
thoughts occupied both camps of the desperate strife that must 
decide the morrow. Suddenly the penetrating and sleepless 
eye of Cromwell saw the Royalists move. It was so. Charles, 
having utterly lost his left position, had despaired of the poor 
chance that remained to him in the face of such a foe. His 
army were now busy in that moonlight, conveying into the 
castle by a circuitous route their guns and heavy stores ; while 
behind, battalion after battalion was noiselessly quitting its 
ground, and marching off as silently in the direction of Oxford. 
Over and over again Cromwell entreated Manchester to suffer 
him to make a forward movement with his cavalry. At that 
critical moment he would have prostrated Charles. Manchester 
refused. A show was made next morning of pursuit, but of 
course without effect. Charles, with all his material and pris¬ 
oners, had effected a clear escape. Nor was this all. While 
the Castle of Donnington remained unmolested amid the dread¬ 
ful dissensions which from this event raged through the Parlia- 


THE BATTLE OF MARSTOtf MOOR. 


123 


mentarian camp, the king, having been reinforced by Rupert 
and an excellent troop of horse, returned twelve days after, 
assumed the offensive in the face of his now inactive con¬ 
querors, carried off all his cannon and heavy stores from out of 
the castle, coolly and uninterruptedly fell back again, and 
marched unmolested into Oxford.” 

And so thus unsuccessfully ended the work which was begun 
so successfully at Marston Moor. Well might Cromwell there¬ 
upon say, “ There will never be a good time in England till we 
have done with lords !” Manchester and Cromwell came to a 
quarrel after this second Newbury fight. Their opposition was 
very marked. 

“ They in fact come to a quarrel here,” says Carlyle, 11 these 
two, and much else that was represented by them came to a 
quarrel : Presbytery and Independency, to wit. Manchester 
was reported to have said, if they lost this army pursuing the 
king, they had no other. The king might hang them. To 
Cromwell and the thorough-going party it had become very 
clear that high Essexes and Manchester, of limited notions and 
large estates and anxieties—who, besides their fear of being 
beaten utterly, and forfeited and 1 hanged,’ were afraid of 
beating the king too well—would never end this cause in a 
good way.” 

Again we have arrived at a pausing point, where the reader 
may look round him and notice the scenery, and reconnoitre 
the state of parties, and the three great personalities meeting 
him here, Presbyterianism, Independency, and Cromwell. 
We have seen that the Scots marched into England to the aid 
of the Parliament. We shall now see that they desired, in the 
subversion of Episcopacy, the elevation of Presbyterianism. 
Meantime there had arisen a large party, representing at that 
time, indeed, the mind of England — Independents, who 
thought with Milton that presbyter was only priest writ large, 
who continued to plead for the right of private judgment and 
universal toleration in religion, setting the will of individual 
churches as the rule and ordinance in church matters. Of this 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


124 

large party, Cromwell was the representative ; of the other, the 
Earls we have mentioned, as the generals of the Parliamentary 
array, may be regarded as the representatives in the camp. 
There were, therefore, two deterring motives preventing them 
from aiming at entire success. As members of the House of 
Peers, they feared lest they should raise up too formidable a 
rival in the Commons ; and they saw, or seemed to see, in the 
Presbyterian party the means of holding in check the power 
they dreaded. We may not, however, so much charge them 
with real treachery, as an utter want of enthusiasm. 

But whatever was the cause of failure, hitherto the Parlia¬ 
mentary cause had comparatively failed—failed in the midst of 
successes—failed evidently from the simple want of decision and 
rapid energy. It became necessary to change the tactics of 
war. Cromwell no doubt felt that he could bring the matter 
to an issue and decision at once ; and that he would do so was 
feared, apparently, by the leaders of the army and by the Pres¬ 
byterians. He was now powerful enough to excite jealousy. 
It was probably felt that he was the strongest man in the king¬ 
dom, and the wisest in these councils and debates ; for this 
reason, many efforts were made to set him on one side, to this 
the Scots Commissioners especially aimed. It was known that 
Cromwell was a thorough Englishman—that he was likely to 
increase in power and influence. A conspiracy, therefore, was 
set on foot to crush him, of which Whitelock gives to us the 
particulars. The conspiracy aimed at the reputation, perhaps 
at the very life, of Cromwell. The record given by Whitelock 
is very curious, more especially as he has preserved so entirely 
the colloquial form. One evening, very late, he informs us, he 
was sent for by the Lord-General Essex, ‘ ‘ and there was no 
excuse to be admitted, nor did we know before the occasion of 
our being sent for. When we came to Essex House, we were 
brought to the Lord-General, and with him were the Scots 
Commissioners, Mr. Holies, Sir Philip Stapylton, Sir John 
Meyrick, and divers others of his special friends. After com¬ 
pliments, and that all were set down in council, the Lord-Gen- 


THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR. 


125 


era! having requested the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, as the 
better orator, to explain the object of the meeting, the latter 
spake to this effect: 

“ Mr. Maynard and Mr. Whitelock . . . you ken vary 

weel that Lieutenant-General Cromwell is no friend of ours ; 
and, since the advance of our army into England, he hath used 
all underhand and cunning means to take from our honor and 
merit of this kingdom ; an evil requital for all our hazards and 
services : but so it is ; and we are, nevertheless, fully satisfied 
of the affections and gratitude of the gude people of this nation 
in the general. 

“It is thought requisite for us, and for the carrying on of 
the cause of the twa kingdoms, that this obstacle, or remora, 
may be removed out of the way ; whom, we foresee, will other¬ 
wise be no small impediment to us, and the gude design we 
have undertaken. 

“ He not only is no friend to us, and to the government of 
our church, but he is also no well-wisher to His Excellency, 
whom you all have cause to love and honor ; and, if he be per¬ 
mitted to go on his ways, it may be, I fear, endanger the whole 
business : therefore, we are to advise of some course to be 
taken for the prevention of that mischief. 

“You ken vary weel the accord ’twixt the twa kingdoms, 
and the union by the solemn league and covenant; and it may 
be an incendiary between the twa nations, how is he to be pro¬ 
ceeded against ? Now, the matter wherein we desire your 
opinions, is, what you tak the meaning of this word ‘ incendi¬ 
ary 9 to be ; and whether Lieutenant-General Cromwell be not 
sic an incendiary, as is meant thereby ; and whilke way wud 
be best to take to proceed against him, if he be proved to be 
sic an incendiary, and that will clepe his wings from soaring to 
the prejudice of our cause. 

“ Now you may ken that, by our law in Scotland, we ’clepe 
him an incendiary wha kindleth coals of contention, and raiseth 
differences, in the state, to the public damage ; and he is tan - 
quam publicus hostis patriae : whether your law be the same 


126 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


or not, you ken best, who are mickle learned therein, and 
therefore, with the favor of His Excellency, we desire your 
judgment thereon.’’ 

But the lawyers were wary ; moreover they perhaps knew 
the madness of this attempt, and saw into its design, and their 
answer brought the plot to a standstill. 

Whitelock replied, “ that if such proofs could i be made 
out, ’ then he was ‘ to be proceeded against for it by Parlia¬ 
ment, upon his being there accused of such things. ’ He added 
that he took ‘ Lieutenant-General Cromwell to be a gentleman 
of quick and subtle parts, and one who had, especially of late, 
gained no small interest in the House of Commons: nor was he 
wanting in friends in the House of Peers ; nor of abilities in 
himself, to manage his own part or defence to the best advan¬ 
tage .’ In conclusion, he could not ‘ advise that, at that time, 
he should be accused for an incendiary ; but rather that direc¬ 
tion might be given to collect such passages relating to him, by 
which their lordships might judge whether they would amount 
to prove him an incendiary or not.’ Maynard, afterward 
speaking, observed that ‘ Lieutenant-General Cromwell was a 
person of great favor and interest with the House of Commons, 
and with som.e of the House of Peers likewise ; ’ and that, there¬ 
fore, ‘ there must be proofs, and the more clear and evident, 
against him, to prevail with the Parliament to adjudge him to 
be an incendiary ; ’ which he believed would * be more difficult 
than perhaps some might imagine to fasten upon him.’.” 

While this plot was in movement, Cromwell certainly ap¬ 
pears to have been himself laboring to curtail the power of the 
General Earls. He impeached Manchester with backwardness 
in entrance upon engagements. He appears in his speech, in 
the House of Commons, to have run over a series of charges, 
certainly affecting the fitness of his commander for his post. 
Manchester in turn accused Cromwell of saying that it ‘ ‘ would 
never be well with England until the Earl was plain Mr. Mon¬ 
tague ; that the Scots had crossed the Tweed only for the pur¬ 
pose of establishing Presbyterianism ; and that, in that cause, 


THE BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR. 127 

he would as soon draw his sword against them as against the 
king ; and sundry other things.” 

The charges against both, on both sides, dropped ; but the 
House of Commons resolved itself into a committee for the 
purpose of considering how best to bring the war to an issue. 

On this occasion the speech of Cromwell was masterly in the 
extreme ; he concluded by calling for a remodelling of the 
whole army, a stricter discipline, and a measure aiming at the 
dismissal of the Earls of Essex, Manchester, and Denbigh. 
This was the famous Self-denying Ordinance, by which all 
members of the Senate were incapacitated for serving in the 
army. The Lords protested against this, because it would 
effectually cut off all their body from being perpetual peers ; 
but this was its very object. Sir Thomas Fairfax, not a mem¬ 
ber, was for that reason elected to supreme command ; and 
thus, it appeared, that some obstacles were removed. Could 
it be imagined that the power and place of Cromwell were also 
suspended ? The Parliament, at any rate in his instance, sus¬ 
pended the Self-denying Ordinance ; was not this a proof that 
it was perceived that he was the most capable man in the king¬ 
dom ? 


CHAPTER IX. 


Cromwell’s contemporaries : prince rupert. 

Prince Rupert has often been called the evil genius of 
Charles, but it would perhaps be quite as true, if not more so, 
to designate Charles as the evil genius of Rupert. There is, 
no doubt, a not unnatural prejudice against the prince, as a 
foreigner, commanding the royal army against the arms of the 
Parliament and the people ; and his name has something of a 
mythical character attaching to it ; he springs suddenly upon 
us and upon our nation as something even like a wild hunter. 
Our readers ought to make themselves distinctly acquainted 
with this singular person, who seems to hold much the same 
place—however inferior in capacity and command—in the royal 
armies which Cromwell held in that of the Parliament. Who 
was this Prince Rupert ? Our readers will perhaps remember 
the magnificent festivities which gladdened the Court and the 
nation when, in 1613, the marriage of Elizabeth of England, 
the daughter of James I., was solemnized, in her sixteenth 
year, with the Prince Palatine, the Elector of Bohemia. If 
we may judge from contemporaneous chronicles, the beauty of 
this only surviving sister of Charles was singular ; she was 
called the “ Pearl of Britain,” and the “ Queen of Hearts 
while the charming symmetry of her form and features are said 
to have been enhanced by the exquisite play of soft expression 
over her face. It has been said that history borrows the colors 
of romance when she paints this fair young princess on the 
morning of her marriage, as she passed along to the chapel 
over a gallery raised for the purpose, glowing in all the lights 
of loveliness and majesty, arrayed in white, her rich dark hair 
falling over her shoulders, and on her head a crown of pure 
gold ; one hand locked in that of her brother Charles, and the 
other leaning on the arm of the old Earl of Northampton ; her 
train of noble bridesmaids followed on her steps. It is said 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : PRINCE RUPERT. 


129 


that England had never seen the equal to the sumptuous splen¬ 
dor of this marriage ; the bravery and riches were incompara¬ 
ble, the gold, the silver, the pearls, the diamonds and every 
variety of jewels. The king’s, queen’s, and prince’s jewels 
were valued alone at £900,000 sterling. Then came magnifi¬ 
cent masques, and the mock fight upon the Thames ; and then 
some gay masque representing the marriage of the Thames and 
the Rhine ; and at night fireworks blazing over London. For 
the marriage was very popular, and was supposed to be a good 
omen for the cause of Protestantism. And when the fair 
princess reached the country of her adoption, the same romantic 
and festive lights for some time shone round her ; the grand 
old ruins of Heidelberg still retain the memories of her resi¬ 
dence there, and romantic fiction has sought to charm the old 
walls and rooms of the famous ruin with her presence. 

She was the mother of Prince Rupert. He was born at 
Prague, in 1619 ; his father had claimed to be, and had got 
himself and his fair young queen crowned, king and queen of 
Bohemia, so that the prince was born with all the assumptions 
of royalty around him. But his genealogist says, “ He began 
to be illustrious many years before his birth, and we must look 
back into history, above two thousand years, to discover the 
first rays of his glory. We may consider,” continues the 
writer, “ him very great, being descended from the two most 
illustrious and ancient houses of Europe, that of England and 
Palatine of the Rhine.” And then the writer goes on to trace 
up his ancestry to Attila, Charlemagne, and so down through 
a succession of Ruperts, Louis, Fredericks. The facts after the 
birth of Rupert are an affecting satire upon all this. All the 
festive chambers became but the rooms in a house of mourn¬ 
ing ; the poor Queen Elizabeth shortly became a widow, an 
exile from the land of her birth, an outcast from the country 
of her adoption and ambition ; all the dark destinies of the 
Stuarts were realized in her story. When Rupert reached 
manhood, she appears to have been a pensioner on Holland ; 
her brother Charles had attained to the English crown, his 


130 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


troubles had not yet commenced, so as to prevent him from 
giving some help to his sister ; but he appears to have given 
none, and only invited her to England with so much indiffer¬ 
ence that the cold hospitality was refused. 

Rupert was in the army of the Netherlands, attaining some 
little experience in w r ar ; but on the whole passing in those 
young days a restless and purposeless life. Then he became an 
Austrian prisoner in the grim old castle of Lintz, and a long 
time passed on in obscurity and silence, illuminated, however, 
by a pleasing, apparently innocent and romantic love story. 
The Count Kuffstein, the governor of Lintz, had a daughter, an 
only daughter ; and the old governor, his stern imagination 
somewhat touched by the misfortunes of his royal prisoner, 
charged his daughter to care for him, watch over him, and 
minister some comfort to him — to do which, perhaps, the 
young lady was not indisposed. So, however, went on some 
love passages in the dark rooms of the old castle hanging over 
the rolling Danube—passages which the prince seems not to 
have forgotten through the future years and vicissitudes of his 
strange career. At length the time of his release came, appar¬ 
ently through the pathetic interest of his mother. Then the 
storm rose in England, and Rupert accepted in good time an 
invitation from his Uncle Charles. 

He reached England at the time when the queen, Henrietta 
Maria, was meditating her flight, and he attended her to Hol¬ 
land, and thence, returning again, he joined the poor little 
Court of his uncle in the old castle of Nottingham ; and from 
this moment his name figures prominently in the story of the 
times. It is only just to him to remember that, after all the 
experiences through which he had passed, he was not yet 
twenty-three years of age. We can very well believe the ac¬ 
counts which represent him as an accession of no ordinary kind 
to the company of friends and counsellors gathered round the 
king. There was little cheerfulness in that assembly; naturally 
enough, the spirits of the king were dark and drooping. We 
need not suppose that the young prince brought much wisdom 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : PRINCE RUPERT. 


131 


to the councils, but his daring impetuosity, the promptitude 
and vigorous decision in the character of the young man, must 
have been like a gale of new life ; he did not come of a wise 
and thoughtful race, but, on the other hand, there does seem 
to have been a dash of magnanimity in his character which sel¬ 
dom shone, and only in occasional gleams, in the more distin¬ 
guished representatives of the Stuart race. Recklessness was 
his vice ; but the portraits of him at this period present quite 
an ideal cavalier, and perhaps he has always been regarded as 
the representative cavalier. His moral and intellectual nature 
would seem to have been derived from his mother : the hand¬ 
some physique, the high-bred Norman nose, the supercilious 
upper lip, the handsome stately form, seem to bear testimony 
to his father’s race. Assuredly, a figure more unlike to that 
grotesque piece of humanity, his grandfather, James I., it is 
impossible to conceive ; the long love-locks of the cavalier fell 
over his shoulders, and he is described as altogether such a per¬ 
son as Vandyke loved to transfer to his canvases, and ladies 
would regard with attractive interest. Of the great questions, 
the profound matters, which led to the solemn discussions of 
his uncle with the people of England, we may believe him to 
be utterly ignorant ; it is not saying too much to assert that 
they were quite beyond the comprehension of a nature like 
that of Prince Rupert. It is worthy of notice that the mighty 
enjoyment of his life was a hunt ; to him might have been ap¬ 
plied the words of the Danish ballad, 

“With my dogs so good 
I hunt the wild deer in the wood.” 

And every conflict in which he engaged on English ground 
seems merely to have been regarded by him as a kind of wild 
hunt. Off he started in the impetuosity of the fight, and, as 
we shall see again and again, having left the field as he sup¬ 
posed in the possession of liis army, and started off in mad 
pursuit, he returned to discover that he had missed his oppor¬ 
tunity, and the field was lost. Such was Prince Rupert, such 
his relationship to Charles, and the circumstances which 
brought him to the Royalist army. 


CHAPTER X. 


THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 

Now we shall push on more rapidly. The Self-denying 
Ordinance is regarded as a masterpiece of duplicity originating 
from the mind of Cromwell. The superseding of the most 
illustrious officers in the People’s army was hailed by the Roy¬ 
alists as a sure prelude to their thorough routing. The king 
was in high hopes. It was about this time he wrote to the 
queen, “ I may, without being too much sanguine, affirm, that 
since the rebellion my affairs were never in so fair and hopeful 
a way.” Cromwell, certainly, could not suppose that he long 
could be dispensed with ; but neither could he at all have 
known how soon his services would be required, and how im¬ 
portant those services were to be. The supreme power, we 
have seen, was vested in the hands of Fairfax. It is quite 
noticeable that his commission was worded differently from the 
way in which all previous commissions had been worded. It 
was made in the name of the Parliament alone, not in that of 
the king and Parliament. 

“ Toward the end of April,” says M. Guizot, “ Fairfax an¬ 
nounced that in a few days he should open the campaign. 
Cromwell went to Windsor, to kiss, as he said, the general’s 
hand, and take him his resignation. On seeing him enter the 
room, Fairfax said, ‘ I have just received from the Committee 
of the Two Kingdoms an order which has reference to you. 
It directs you to proceed directly with some horse to the road 
between Oxford and Worcester, to intercept communications 
between Prince Rupert and the king.’ The same evening 
Cromwell departed on his mission, and in five days, before any 
other corps of the new army had put itself in motion, he had 
beaten the Royalists in three encounters (April 24th, at Islip 
Bridge ; 26th, at Witney ; 27th, at Bampton Bush), taken 


THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 


133 


Bletchington (April 24th), and sent to the House a full report 
of his success. i Who will bring me this Cromwell, dead or 
alive ! ’ cried the king ; while in London all were rejoicing 
that he had not yet given in his resignation. 

“ A week had scarcely passed, and the Parliament had 
already made up its mind that he should not resign. The 
campaign had commenced (April 30th). The king quitted 
Oxford (May 7th), had rejoined Prince Rupert, and was pro¬ 
ceeding toward the north, either to raise the siege of Chester 
or give battle to the Scottish army, and regain on that side its 
former advantages. If he succeeded, he w r ould be in a posi¬ 
tion to threaten, as he pleased, the east or the south ; and Fair¬ 
fax, then on his way to the west to deliver the important town 
of Taunton, closely invested by the Prince of Wales, could 
not oppose his progress. Fairfax was recalled (May 5th) ; but, 
meantime, Cromwell alone was in a condition to watch the 
king’s movements. Notwithstanding the Ordinance, he re¬ 
ceived orders to continue his sendee forty days (May 10th).” 

The country was alarmed at the idea of Cromwell resigning 
at such a juncture as this. The Common Council petitioned 
Parliament, demanding a free discretion to be given to the 
General, and the permanent restoration of Cromwell to his for¬ 
mer command. The latter was confirmed by an application, 
signed by General Fairfax and sixteen of his chief officers, for 
Cromwell to join him as an officer indispensably needed to 
command the cavalry. 

On the 12th of June, 1645, a reconnoitring party of the 
Parliamentary cavalry unexpectedly came upon a detachment of 
the Royal army, leisurely returning from the north, on the 
news of the threatened blockade of Oxford. The king was 
flushed with the highest hopes. The success of Montrose in 
the north promised to free him from all fear in that direction, 
and he anticipated a body of troops to join him from the west. 
The meeting of outposts of the two armies was in the neighbor¬ 
hood of Northampton ; but the king fell back immediately 
toward Leicester, to allow his whole forces to draw together. 


134 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


On the following day Cromwell joined Fairfax amid shouts from 
the whole army, and, a few hours afterward, the king learned 
that the squadrons under his command were already harassing 
the rear. Prince Rupert advised an immediate attack on the 
enemy. A council of war was held, and many of the officers 
urged delay until the expected reinforcements should join 
them ; but Rupert’s advice prevailed. On the field of Naseby 
the two armies met once more in deadly fight early on the 
morning of the 14th of June. 

On the field of Marston the genius of Cromwell shone forth, 
as we have said, for the first time, amazing by its majesty alike 
the army of the Parliament and the king. On the field of 
Naseby the baton of Cromwell struck down the sceptre from 
the hand of Charles, never in his day to be lifted by royal 
hands again. Naseby, we know, is a little village town in 
Leicestershire, near Market Harborough, and remains, we un¬ 
derstand, to this day very much what it was on the day of the 
battle in June, 1645. A wide, wavy, open country it is, and 
between two elevations, hardly to be dignified by the name of 
hills, lies the field—spot of battle, spot of doom, “ valley of 
the shadow of death” to how many brave men ! They still 
show the old table at Naseby where the guards of Rupert—the 
Cavaliers—sat the night before the battle—an old oak table, 
deeply indented and stained w r ith the carousals of ages. The 
battle of Marston field was decided by about ten o’clock at 
night ; the battle of Naseby began about ten in the morning, a 
bright summer morning. When they met there, those two 
armies, amid the green heraldry of indignant Nature, beneath 
the song of the startled lark, and the gay varieties of the green 
earth, and the dappled sky, and the springing corn, there rose 
the Royalists’ cry of “ Queen Mary !” answered by the stern, 
gruff battle-shout of the Ironsides, “Cod is with us!” 
Rupert knew that Cromwell was on the field, and sought to 
bring his troops against the mighty Roundhead ; but he found 
Ireton instead—a soldier who afterward, as Cromwell’s son-in- 
law, exhibited much of the iron resolve of his yet more illus- 


THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 


135 


trious father. If any field could have been won by passion 
alone, Rupert would have won not only Naseby, but many an¬ 
other field ; but we know that, as passion is one of the most 
frail elements of our nature, so Rupert was one of the most 
frail of men. At the head of his Cavaliers, in white sash and 
plume, he indeed flamed in brilliant gallantry over the field, 
shouting, “ Queen Mary ! Queen Mary !” while the more 
rough, unknightly soldiers thundered, God is with us ! God 
is with us !” Beholding Cromwell flying from one part of the 
field to another like lightning, breaking the enemy’s lines, it 
might seem that he too, like Rupert, was only impersonated 
passion ; but his vision included the whole field, and held all 
that passion in mastery and in check. At one moment, a com¬ 
mander of the king’s, knowing Cromwell, advanced briskly 
from the head of his troops to exchange a single bullet with 
him. They encountered, their pistols discharged, and the 
Cavalier, with a slanting back blow of the sword, cut the string 
of Oliver’s helmet, or morion. He was just about to repeat 
the stroke, but some of Cromwell’s party passed by, rescued 
him, and one of them threw his headpiece on his saddle. 
Hastily Cromwell caught it, and placed it on his head the 
wrong way, and so through the day he wore it ; and every¬ 
where his words, “ God is with us !” struck like light over his 
soldiers’ hearts, like lightning over his enemies. What was 
there in the poor cry, “ Queen Mary !” (and such a Mary !) to 
kindle feelings like that ! Then, at last, the tide of the day 
turned, and the Royalists sunk, or attempted to retain a 
retreating fight among the gorse bushes and the rabbit warrens, 
which checked the Roundheads’ charge. But on this field the 
passionate Rupert, as at Marston, supposed that he had won the 
day, and, thinking the victory all his own, he clove his way 
back to the spot where the poor helpless king was cheering his 
dismayed troopers. Indeed, we can almost weep as we hear 
that cry from the king : “ One charge more, gentlemen ! One 
charge more, in the name of God ! and the day is ours.” He 
placed himself at the head of the troopers, and a thousand of 



136 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


/ 

them prepared to follow him. One of his courtiers snatched 
his bridle, and turned him from the path of honor to that of 
despair. “ Why,” says one writer, “ was there no hand to 
strike that traitor to the ground ?” Alas ! if the king’s own 
hand could not strike that traitor to the ground, was it possible 
that another’s could ? Who would have dared to have taken 
Cromwell’s bridle at such a moment ? And so, at the battle of 
Naseby, the crown fell from the king’s head and the sceptre 
from his hand, and he was henceforth never more in any sense 
a king. Poor king ! “ Who will bring me,” cried he in de¬ 

spair, “ this Cromwell, dead or alive ?” Alas ! your majesty, 
who ? 

Everywhere Rupert was Charles’s evil genius. Everywhere 
his impetuosity injured himself, his cause, and his royal mas¬ 
ter. He galloped forward two miles to ascertain the intentions 
of Fairfax ; and returning, sent word through the line that he 
was retreating. It was a ruse of Cromwell’s. He had merely 
put in motion a few of his troops. Charles, trusting to the 
miserable deceiving and self-deception of Rupert, relinquished 
the favorable ground he occupied, and led his battalions into 
the plain. Here the great generals had fixed themselves in a 
remarkably strong position. Here they were thundering out 
their hymns in the very enthusiasm of a triumph, rather than 
in expectation of a battle. Upon the field altogether there 
were about 36,000 men. Rupert began the battle. He 
charged Ireton with such boldness that even that lion - like 
officer sank before his terrible and bold and passionate on¬ 
slaught. Fairfax that day, abandoning the privileges of a gen¬ 
eral, performed feats of valor in the thickest of the fight, bare¬ 
headed. He everywhere flamed resolution and courage over 
every part of the field, and especially among the ranks of his 
own men. But he failed to turn the fortune of the day. Ire- 
ton, on the left, was routed. Fairfax, in the centre, remained 
struggling, the fate of his men undecided. Cromwell and his 
Ironsides stood there, upon the right. They were attacked by 
Sir Marmaduke Langdale—he might as well have attacked a 



The Battle of Naseby. 





























































THE BATTLE OP NASEBY. 


137 


rock—when the Royalists recoiled. The Ironsides in turn at¬ 
tacked them, poured over them a terrible and heavy fire, routed 
them, sent three squadrons after them to prevent their rallying, 
and with the remaining four hastened to Fairfax, and, with an 
overpowering shock, dashed through, scattered, and cut down 
the Royalists, hoping for victory in the centre. In vain 
Charles, with remarkable bravery, sought to recover the for¬ 
tune of the fight. He no doubt felt at that moment the hope¬ 
less ruin of his cause. 

“ One more charge,” said the poor defeated king, “ and we 
recover the day.” 

This is the moment which Lord Macaulay has seized in his 
fine lyric, “ The Battle of Naseby,” too lengthy to quote 
entire. The following verses commence with the rout of the 
Roundheads, and the sudden rush down of Oliver with his 
Ironsides : 

“ They are here ! They rush on ! We are broken ! We are gone! 
Our left is borne before them like stubble on the blast. 

O Lord, put forth Thy might! O Lord, defend the right! 

Stand back to back, in God’s name, and fight it to the last. 

“ Stout Skippon hath a wound ; the centre hath given ground : 
Hark ! hark! What means the trampling of horsemen on our rear ? 
Whose banner do I see, boys ? ’Tis he, thank God, ’tis he, boys I 
Bear up another minute : brave Oliver is here. 

“Their heads all stooping low, their points all in a row, 

Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dykes, 

Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the accurst. 

And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes. 

“ Fast, fast the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide 
Their coward heads, predestined to rot on Temple Bar; 

And he—he turns, he flies ; shame on those cruel eyes 
That bore to look on torture, and dare not look on war.” 

Never was rout more thorough and complete. Two thou¬ 
sand men were left dead on the field. “ God is with us !” had 
been the noble watchword of the Parliamentarians ; “ Queen 
Mary !” was the watchword of the Royalists. Is there not 


138 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


something very significant in the different success of such mot¬ 
toes ? The king here lost all. The prisoners taken were five 
thousand foot and three thousand horse. They captured the 
whole of Charles’s artillery, eight thousand stand of arms, 
above a hundred pair of colors, the royal standard, the king’s 
cabinet of letters (alas !), and the whole spoil of the camp. 
That cabinet of letters revealed, beyond all question, the per¬ 
fidy of the king ; proved that he never desired peace, and 
made his favorite exclamation, ‘ ‘ On the word of a king, ’ ’ a 
byword, and, for some time, the synonym of a lie. The let¬ 
ters were all published, after having been read aloud to the 
assembled citizens in Guildhall, that all the people might satisfy 
themselves of their monarch’s probity. This battle was fought 
on the 14th of June, 1645, and increased Cromwell’s influence 
amazingly. 

And now we follow him through a long series of most daring 
and brilliant adventures, conquests, and expeditions. Rapidly 
he covered—he overspread the land with his victorious men of 
iron. His vigilance was wonderful. Town after town was 
taken. He swept over the country like a tempest. Leicester, 
and thence to Bridgewater, Shaftesbury, Bristol, Devizes. Sum¬ 
moning the last-mentioned town to surrender : “ Win it, and 
wear it,” said the governor. Cromwell did both. He then 
stormed Berkeley Castle, and threw himself before Winchester. 
The last-named place surrendered by capitulation. While here 
he very courteously sent in to the Bishop of Winchester, and 
offered him a guard to secure his person ; but the bishop, fly¬ 
ing into the castle, refused his courtesy. Afterward, when the 
castle began to be battered by two pieces of ordnance, he sent 
to the lieutenant-general, thanking him for the great favor 
offered to him, and being now more sensible what it was, he 
desired the enjoyment of it. To whom the wise lieutenant- 
general replied, that since he made not use of the courtesy, but 
wilfully ran away from it, he must now partake of the same 
conditions as the others who w^ere with him in the castle ; and 
if he were taken, he must expect to be used as a prisoner of 


THE BATTLE OF NASEBY. 


139 


war. Another interesting incident illustrates Cromwell’s strict 
severity in exacting compliance, from his own army, with its 
articles. When information was laid before him by the van¬ 
quished that they had been plundered by some of his soldiers 
on leaving the city, contrary to the terms granted to them, he 
ordered the offenders to be tried by a court-martial, at which 
they were sentenced to death. W T hereupon he ordered the un¬ 
fortunate men, who were six in number, to cast lots for the 
first sufferer ; and after his execution, sent the remaining five, 
with a suitable explanation, to Sir Thomas Glenhain, Governor 
of Oxford, requesting him to deal with them as he thought fit : 
a piece of conduct which so charmed the Royalist officer, that 
he immediately returned the men to Cromwell, with a grateful 
compliment, and expression of much respect. 

Still on ! on ! After Winchester, Basing fell before him ; 
this was thought to be one of the most impregnable of for¬ 
tresses. Then Salisbury ; then Exeter, where he fought Lord 
Wentworth and took five hundred prisoners and six standards, 
one of which was the king’s ; then pouring along Cornwall, he 
scattered the last remnants of the Royalist army ; and, by and 
by, after innumerable other victories, entered London, greeted 
wdth extraordinary honors. The instant he entered the House, 
all the members rose to receive him, and the Speaker pro¬ 
nounced a long and elaborate eulogium, closing with “ the 
hearty thanks of the House for his many services.” An annu¬ 
ity of £2500 appears to have been granted to Cromwell and his 
family, including estates escheated to the Parliamentary cause. 
In the presence of all this, Hume’s sneer at him as an inferior 
general is as laughable as it is contemptible and mean. Of 
those days of Cromwell’s rapid flights hither and thither, all 
England retains to this day the footmarks. No wonder that 
Essex and Manchester did not move sufficiently rapid for him. 
Cromwell, we see, decided the popular cause. Royalism now lay 
prostrate before his feet by a series of the most astounding vic¬ 
tories of which our kingdom ever had the impress or told the 
tale. His presence was certain victory. Invincible ! we surely 


140 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


may call him. There is no corner of England where ruins of 
old feudal state or monastic grandeur are not coupled with the 
name of Cromwell ; and while, doubtless, his name will be 
mentioned in connection with spots he never saw, it yet gives 
to us an idea of the wonderful universality of his power and 
conquest. 



CHAPTER XI. 


/ 


CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 

But it has been said that there is one place where we dare 
not follow him—Ireland. Let us see. The Irish Roman Cath¬ 
olics had broken out in rebellion, and had massacred (according 
to various accounts) from fifty thousand to two hundred thou¬ 
sand victims. This was the Hibernian St. Bartholomew. The 
Irish, indeed, at this time determined on erasing every vestige 
of the English name from their country. 

This great insurrection had broken out in 1640 ; it was not 
until after a long succession of murders, pillages, wild confla¬ 
grations, and excommunications that Cromwell was called upon 
by the Parliament, in 1649, to go there as Lord-Lieutenant, to 
attempt what really must be a difficult conquest. Guizot says, 
“ The Protestants of Ireland had been ejected from their 
houses, hunted down, slaughtered, and exposed to all the tort¬ 
ures that religious and patriotic hatred could invent ; a half- 
savage people, passionately attached to their barbarism, eager 
to avenge, in a day, ages of outrage and misery, with a proud 
joy committed excesses which struck their ancient masters with 
horror and dismay.” And, in fact, Cromwell undertook the 
task with great reluctance, and probably foresaw that there 
would be terrible reprisals. 

“ In fact,” writes Merle D’Aubigne, “ the Catholics burned 
the houses of the Protestants, turned them out naked in the 
midst of winter, and drove them, like herds of swine, before 
them. If, ashamed of their nudity, and desirous of seeking 
shelter from the rigor of a remarkably severe season, these un- 
happy wretches took refuge in a barn, and concealed themselves 
under the straw, the rebels instantly set fire to it and burned 
them alive. At other times they were led without clothing to 
be drowned in rivers 5 and if, on the road, they did not move 


142 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


quick enough, they were urged forward at the point of the 
pike. When they reached the river or the sea, they were pre¬ 
cipitated into it, in bands of several hundreds, which is doubt¬ 
less an exaggeration. If these poor wretches arose to the sur¬ 
face of the water, men were stationed along the brink to plunge 
them in again with the butts of their muskets, or to fire at and 
kill them. Husbands were cut to pieces in the presence of their 
wives ; wives and virgins were abused in the sight of their 
nearest relations ; and infants of seven or eight years were hung 
before the eyes of their parents. Nay, the Irish even went so 
far as to teach their own children to strip and kill the children 
of the English, and dash out their brains against the stones. 
Numbers of Protestants were buried alive, as many as seventy 
in one trench. An Irish priest, named MacOdeghan, captured 
forty or fifty Protestants, and persuaded them to abjure their 
religion on a promise of quarter. After their abjuration, he 
asked them if they believed that Christ was bodily present in 
the Host, and that the Pope was head of the Church ? and on 
their replying in the affirmative, he said, * Now, then, you are 
in a very good faith ! ’ and, for fear they should relapse into 
heresy, he cut all their throats. ’ ’ 

Let these facts always be borne in mind when we look on 
Cromwell in Ireland. 

This rebellion, which broke out in 1640, had, through the 
necessity of the times, been much neglected till 1649. The 
Parliament, indeed, had long before got possession of Dublin, 
which was delivered up to them by the Marquis of Ormond, 
who was then obliged to come over to England. But being 
recalled by the Irish, Ormond made a league with them in favor 
of the king, and brought over most of the kingdom into a 
union with the Royalists. Londonderry and Dublin were the 
only places that held out for the Parliament, and the latter was 
in great danger of being lost. This compelled Colonel Jones, 
the Governor, to send over to England for succor ; and a con¬ 
siderable body of forces was thereupon ordered for Ireland. 
The command of these was offered to Cromwell, who accepted 


CROMWELL IK IRELAKD. 


143 


it with seeming reluctance ; professing “ that the difficulty 
which appeared in the expedition, was his chief motive for 
engaging in it ; and that he hardly expected to prevail over the 
rebels, but only to preserve to the Commonwealth some footing 
in that kingdom.” 

The Parliament was so pleased with his answer, that, on the 
22 d of June, 1649, it gave him a commission to command all 
the forces that should be sent into Ireland, and to be Lord- 
Governor of that kingdom for three years, in all affairs both 
civil and military. From the very minute of his receiving this 
charge, Cromwell used an incredible expedition in the raising 
of money, providing of shipping, and drawing the forces to¬ 
gether for their intended enterprise. The soldiery marched 
with great speed to the rendezvous at Milford Haven, there to 
expect the new Lord-Deputy, who followed them from London 
on the 10th of July. His setting out was very pompous, 
being drawn in a coach with six horses, and attended by many 
members of the Parliament and Council of State, with the chief 
of the army ; his life-guard, consisting of eighty men who had 
formerly been commanders, all bravely mounted and accoutred, 
both they and their servants. 

He was received with extraordinary honors at Bristol. 
Thence he went to Wales, and embarked for Ireland from the 
lovely and magnificent haven of Milford, and at last arrived in 
Dublin. Reviewing his army of twelve thousand men—appar¬ 
ently a small army, indeed, for such a work !—there, he ad¬ 
vanced to Drogheda, or Tredagh, which he took by storm. 
His advance through the country was a continued triumph, a 
repetition of the same wonderful career which closed the war 
with Charles in England. The taking of Tredagh was a feat of 
extraordinary strength ; so much so, that the brave O’Neal 
swore a great oath, “ That if Cromwell had taken Tredagh, if 
he could storm hell, he would take it also !” Terrible also was 
the contest of Clonmell, before which Cromwell sat down with 
the resolution of fighting and of conquest. 

Many persons were here taken, and among them the cele- 


144 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


brated fighting Bishop of Ross, who was carried to a castle 
kept by his own forces, and there hanged before the walls, in 
sight of the garrison ; which so discouraged them that they 
immediately surrendered to the Parliament’s forces. This 
bishop was used to say, “ There was no way of curing the Eng¬ 
lish, "but by hanging them.” 

For all this tremendous havoc, the most terrible oath an 
Irishman knows to the present day is ” The curse of Crom¬ 
well !” And the massacres and the besiegements are ever 
called in to blacken the great general’s memory by writers, for 
instance, like Clarendon. And what did Cromwell do first ? 
All husbandmen, and laborers, ploughmen, artificers, and oth¬ 
ers of the meaner sort of the Irish nation, were to be exempted 
from question in reference to the eight years of blood and mis¬ 
ery, now ended. As to the ringleaders, indeed, and those who 
could be proved to be really concerned in the massacre of 
1641, there was for these a carefully graduated scale of punish¬ 
ments—banishment, death, but only after exact inquiry and 
proof. Those in arms at certain dates against the Parliament, 
but not in the massacre, these were not to forfeit their estates, 
but lands, to a third of their value, in Connaught were to be 
assigned to them. Others not well affected to Parliament were 
to forfeit one third of their estates, and to remain quiet at their 
peril. The Catholic aristocracy, we see, were to be punished 
for their guilty bloodsheddings, but the ” ploughmen, hus¬ 
bandmen, and artificers of the meaner sort were to be exempted 
from all question.” Clarendon admitted that Ireland flour¬ 
ished under this arrangement to a surprising extent ; and 
Thomas Carlyle well says, “ This curse of Cromwell, so called, 
is the only gospel of veracity I can yet discover to have been 
ever fairly afoot there.” 

Cromwell returned to London in the month of May, 1650, as 
a soldier who had gained more laurels and done more wonders 
in nine months than any age or history could parallel, and 
sailed home, as it were, in triumph. At Bristol he was twice 
saluted by the great guns, and welcomed back with many other 


CROMWELL IN IRELAND. 


145 


demonstrations of joy. On Hounslow Heath he was met by 
General Fairfax, many members of Parliament, and officers of 
the army, and multitudes of the common people. Coming to 
Hyde Park, he was received by the Lord Mayor and Corpora¬ 
tion of the City of London ; the great guns were fired off, and 
Colonel Barkstead’s regiment, which was drawn up for that 
purpose, gave him several volleys with their small arms. Thus 
in a triumphant manner he entered London, amid a crowd of 
attendants, and was received with the highest acclamations. 
And after resuming his place in Parliament, the Speaker, in 
an eloquent speech, returned him the thanks of the House for 
his great and faithful services in Ireland ; after which, the 
Lord-Lieutenant gave them a particular account of the state and 
condition of that kingdom. It was while he rode thus in state 
through London that Oliver replied to some sycophantic per¬ 
son, who had observed, “ What a crowd comes out to see your 
lordship’s triumph !” “ Yes ; but if it were to see me hanged, 

how many more would there be !” Here is a clear-headed, 
practical man. 

But it was a busy life ; his three years Lord-Lieutenancy had 
evidently been remitted ; for other and urgent matters de¬ 
manded such a baton as he alone could wield ; and when he 
had struck down the rebellion, the Parliament recalled him, 
and he arrived in London May 31st, 1650. On the 29th of 
June, within a single month of his arrival at home, he set forth 
on his great military expedition to Scotland. The Parliament 
had wished Lord Fairfax to take command, and set things right 
there ; but, although Fairfax was an Independent, his wife was 
a Presbyterian, and she would not allow her husband to go. 
We believe that it was very well that it was so. 


CHAPTER XII. 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 

Mr. Andrew Bisset lias written at greater length probably 
than any other recent historian, concerning what he calls 
Cromwell’s invasion of Scotland, and especially concerning the 
battle of Dunbar. The description of that battle-field, oui 
readers do not need to be told, is one of Carlyle’s noblest bat¬ 
tle-pieces. Mr. Bisset, however, writes in the earnest desire in 
some measure to account for, and to cover the disgrace of, that 
defeat. Nor does he altogether fail. He entertains a pleasant 
idea that Cromwell was a poor general ; that he never on any 
occasion, not even at Dunbar, exhibited that higher military 
genius which dazzles and excites. He believes that his merit 
as a general was confined to his raising a body of troops who 
were well fed and well disciplined. Cromwell, he thinks, had 
a fertile genius in craft, and, to use historian Bisset’s words, 
“ There are many villains who owe their success, both in pub¬ 
lic and private life, to the same arts by which Oliver Cromwell 
overreached his friends and his party, and made himself abso¬ 
lute ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland.” It is singular 
that, according to the theory of Mr. Bisset, the amazing craft 
which he unquestionably possessed in council, he never dis¬ 
played on the field. He remarks again : “ The battle of Dun¬ 
bar w r as the only battle in these wars, except those battles 
fought by Montrose, in which any considerable degree of gen¬ 
eralship was shown. Most of the battles of this great Civil 
War were steady pounding matches, where the hostile armies 
drew up in parallel lines, and fought till one was beaten. ’ ’ It 
is not necessary to stay a moment to refute this eminently fool¬ 
ish verdict of areally very well-informed man ; still, had we any 
personal acquaintance with Mr. Bisset, we should like to lay 
before him the strategic plans of the fields of Marston, Naseby, 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


147 


and others, which perhaps would demonstrate that they were 
no more mere “ pounding matches” than were any of the great 
fields of Marlborough or of Wellington. It certainly does ap¬ 
pear that David Leslie, the commander of the Scots at Dunbar, 
found his hands tied by a committee ; and any kind of battle 
anywhere may be lost, but, probably, no battle of any kind 
was ever gained, by a committee. J The English army reached 
Dunbar on the night of Sunday, the 1st of September, 1650 ; 
it was rainy and tempestuous weather ; the poor army drew up 
amid swamps and bogs, but could not pitch a tent ; the expres¬ 
sions in Cromwell’s letter seem to show that he felt himself 
reduced to extremities. To those extremities we may refer 
presently. A dispassionate glance, however, at the state of 
affairs, does not permit us to suppose that, under the most 
favorable circumstances, the Scots could have been successful. 
A piece of grim folly it appears, to constitute a Committee of 
Estates, or a Committee of Court Commissioners into a council 
of war, to regulate and coerce the will of a commander or gen¬ 
eral of forces. But this was actually the case ; and it was to 
this Committee Cromwell was indebted for that false move 
which Leslie made, and which the vigilant eye of the great 
English commander so soon perceived and turned to fearful 
account. But it appears clearly the case that, if Leslie had not 
made this disadvantageous move, he could have had little 
chance against the inferior numbers of the English army. 
Cromwell’s soldiers were no doubt in uncomfortable circum¬ 
stances amid the swamps and the bogs, but they were well ap¬ 
pointed, well trained and disciplined, well fed, and well 
armed ; in fact, they had come forth, as Mr. Bisset pleases to 
call it, to invade Scotland ! but in reality to repel the Scotch 
invasion of England ; and the English nation was behind them. 

The Scottish country in those days was not charming ; the 
contrast is strongly expressed by some of the invaders of their 
impressions of the Scottish as contrasted with the English vil¬ 
lages. For the English village, even in those days, was per¬ 
haps not less romantic and picturesquely pleasant than now ; 


148 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


nay, perhaps, in innumerable instances even more so. The 
pleasant village green, the old stone church, even then of many 
generations, the—compared with our times—rough but yet 
well-to-do farm, perhaps generally of that style we call the 
“ watling plaster,” the straggling laborers’ cottages, running 
along the village for a mile, with their gardens, if not trim and 
neat, yet, from what we know of the Culpeppers and other 
such writers of the time, redundant in their wealth of herbs 
and flowers ; the old villages of the England of that day look 
quite as attractive, beneath their lines of rugged elms and their 
vast yew trees’ shade, as now. Those belonging to the Pro¬ 
tector’s army who have recorded their impressions, contrast all 
this with that which greeted their eyes in Scottish villages as 
they passed along. They saw nothing to remind them of the 
beauty of the English village ; for the most part these were 
assemblages of mere clay or mud hovels. Land, it seemed, 
was too valuable in Scotland to be wasted on cottage gardens 
and village greens. And from such homes as these the inhabi¬ 
tants were dragged forth by their lairds with no very good will 
of their own, and they appear, as they gathered into their 
ranks, to have been badly fed and badly accoutred. All this 
may partly apologize for the exceedingly irascible language his¬ 
torian Bisset indulges in when he says, “ In the long black 
catalogue of disasters brought upon Scotland, during a period 
of five hundred years, by rulers whom God in His wrath had 
sent to be her curse, her scourge, and her shame, there is none 
greater or more shameful than this rout of Dunbar.” The 
good historian Bisset, it would seem, has some personal strong 
feelings which irritate him as he attempts to depreciate the 
merits of the victory of Cromwell at Dunbar. Our readers will 
perhaps think his notes of depreciation very slight when he 
alleges, that Cromwell had not gained the victory probably, 
only that in the first instance he availed himself of Leslie’s bad 
move, and in the next instance in the conflict he “ had the ad¬ 
vantage of the initiative,’’ which also seems very foolish rea¬ 
soning on the part of historian Bisset. Whether in all the bat- 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


149 


ties be fought he took the initiative or not, it is not necessary 
here to discuss ; but he watched the moment, whenever that 
moment might be, and then, striking sudden, swift, and sharp, 
with all the celerity of lightning, this was certainly a way, and 
for his enemies a very unpleasant way, Cromwell had. 

But disposing of and dismissing Mr. Historian Bisset, it still 
remains true, that to see Cromwell in the full height of his 
greatness, we must follow him to Scotland, to Dunbar. 

It is tolerably easy to understand the state of the question. 
We have seen the Scots aiding the Parliament and doing battle 
with the king—nay, selling him. But they desired the victory 
of Presbyterianism ; Cromwell was opposed to the elevation of 
any sect. This was one chief cause of the antipathy of the 
Scotch. Then they invited Charles, son of the late king, from 
Holland, and proclaimed him king of the Scots ; they did not 
know, when they invited him, that, with the perfidy and vil¬ 
lainy hereditary in his family, he had issued a commission em¬ 
powering Montrose to raise troops and to subdue the country 
by force of arms. Our readers have not to learn, now, that 
Charles II. was, perhaps in a deeper degree than any of his 
ancestors or descendants, false, treacherous, and licentious. 
He signed the Solemn League and Covenant of Scotland, sup¬ 
porting the Protestant religion, at the very moment he was in 
attempted negotiation with Rome for befriending the Papacy. 
He was, however, proclaimed king of the Scots, and the Scots 
had a perfect right to elect him to be their monarch ; but he 
aimed at the recovery of Scotland in order to recover the 
crowns of the three kingdoms. To win Scotland to help him 
in this, he would not only sign the Covenant, he proffered to 
sign a declaration by which he renounced all Papacy and Epis¬ 
copacy. But pledged word or oath were of very little account 
with him. 

It was surely a strange procedure, that in Scotland, where 
Jenny Geddes had hurled her cutty-stool against Popery, and 
where first the storm had raged forth against the despotism and 
tyranny of the Stuarts—it was surely strange, that there, of all 


150 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


places in the British Empire, Charles II. should be received. 
It is clearly obvious that the aim of the Scotch clergy was to 
impose Presbyterianism upon the whole of the empire. Scot¬ 
land looks very bad in this business. However, Cromwell, now 
proclaimed Lord-General of the Parliamentary forces, has to 
march away with all speed to settle, as best he may, these new 
and final differences. He entered Scotland on the 23d of July, 
1650, with 11,000 horse and foot, commanded under him by 
Generals Fleetwood, Lambert, and Whally ; and Colonels 
Pride, Overton, and Monk. He found before him, whitherso¬ 
ever he went, a desolation ; the Scotch preachers had described 
the English soldiers as monsters, delighting in the murder or 
the mutilation of women and children. The peasantry, having 
destroyed what they must have been compelled to leave, fled 
with whatever they could remove. How far they misunder¬ 
stood the character of their great enemy, we shall by and by 
see ; indeed, it appears that very soon the Scots came to know 
him better. There had come before him a report that the 
English army intended to put all the men to the sword, and to 
thrust hot irons through the women’s breasts ; but the general’s 
proclamation soon eased them upon that score, and according 
to the documents of Whitelock, it appears that the women 
stayed behind their husbands, to provide bread and drink, by 
baking and brewing, for the English army. 

For a vivid, accurate knowledge—nay, more, for a bright, 
gleaming canvas cartoon, or picture, of the great battle of 
Dunbar, let any one read the account as given us by Carlyle.* 
So vivid is the picture, that we can see the disposition of those 
armies, and the full array of all that magnificent scenery, upon 
Monday, the 2d of September, 1650. The little town of Dun¬ 
bar comes out plainly before us, on its high and windy hill, 
overlooking its ancient castle, and its rocky promontories 
stretching along the sea, fishing villages, and indenting bays. 
On the hills, see the long array of Leslie’s army—one of the 

* Cromwell’s “Letters and Speeches,” vol. iii. p. 38. 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


151 


largest and most important Scotland ever mustered, twenty- 
seven thousand men skirting the Lammermuirs ; and there, 
down beneath, near where the peninsula stretches out to the 
sea, there is Oliver, with his less than eleven thousand. He 
never was in so critical a position before. There is no re¬ 
treat ; behind him is the sea. In front of him is Leslie and 
the heath—continents of bog and swamp, where none but the 
mountain sheep can, with any safety, travel—the Lammermoor. * 
Well may we ask, What is Oliver to do now ? 

What is Oliver to do now ? It does appear as if he is to be 
annihilated here, in this wilderness ; for wide all round looms 
the desolation over the whole ground occupied by the contend¬ 
ing armies. It appears there were then only two houses and 
farmsteads. On this Monday there had been some slight 
skirmishing. Leslie’s horse dashed across those little huts, 
occupied by Lambert’s, or Pride’s foot and horse, and seized 
three prisoners, one a musketeer, a spirited fellow, with a 
wooden arm. On being brought before Leslie, he was asked, 

“ Do the enemy intend to fight ?” The man replied, “ What 
do you think we come here for ? We come for nothing else.” 

“ Soldier,” said Leslie, “ how will you fight, when you have 
shipped half your men and all your great guns ?” The answer 
was, “ Sir, if you please to draw down your men, you shall 
find both men and great guns too.” To one of the officers 
who asked him how he dared reply so saucily to the general, 
he said, “ I only answer the question put to me.” Leslie sent 
him across, free again, by a trumpet ; and making his way to 
Cromwell, he reported what had passed, adding, “ I for one 
have lost twenty shillings by the business, plundered from me 
in this skirmish.” Thereupon the Lord-General gave him two 
pieces, which are forty shillings, and sent him away rejoicing. 

It will be well also to read the following letter, in which we 
have so mingled a tone of cheerfulness and caution. He 
evidently was preparing for the worst, and yet looked for¬ 
ward to the probability of some interposition for help and 
deliverance. 


152 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


“ To Sir Arthur Hazlerig, Governor of Newcastle: These. 

“ Dunbar, 2 d September, 1650. 

“ Dear Sir, —We are here upon an engagement very diffi¬ 
cult. The enemy hath blocked up our way at the Pass at Cop- 
perspath, through which we cannot go without almost a miracle. 
He lieth so upon the hills that we know not how to come that 
way without great difficulty ; and our lying here daily con- 
sumeth our men, who fall sick beyond imagination. 

“ I perceive your forces are not in a capacity for present 
release. Wherefore, whatever becomes of us, it will be well 
for you to get what forces you can together ; and the south to 
help what they can. The busiuess nearly concerneth all good 
people. If your forces had been in a readiness to have fallen 
upon the back of Coppersgate, it might have occasioned 
supplies to have come to us. But the only wise God knows 
what is best. All shall work for good. Our spirits [minds] 
are comfortable, praised be the Lord, though our present con¬ 
dition be as it is. And indeed we have much hope in the 
Lord ; of whose mercy we have had large experience. 

“ Indeed, do you get together what forces you can against 
them. Send to friends in the south to help with more. Let 
H. Vane know what I write. I would not make it public, lest 
danger should accrue thereby. You know what use to make 
hereof. Let me hear from you. I rest, 

“ Your servant, 

“ Oliver Cromwell. 

“ P.S.—It is difficult for me to send to you. Let me hear 
from you after ‘ you receive this.’ ” 

But hope, we have said, did by no means desert the general ; 
in the army of Leslie, and among the preachers accompanying 
the army, there was confidence, and the presumption generated 
from confidence ; they expected soon to destroy the army of 
Cromwell, and to scatter it over the moors and over the sea, 
perhaps to have the illustrious general in their power ; they 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


153 


expected to march on without interruption to London with the 
king. “ But,” says Cromwell, in one of his despatches, “ in 
what they were thus lifted up, the Lord was above them. The 
enemy lying in the posture before mentioned, having these 
advantages, we lay very near to him, being sensible of our dis¬ 
advantages, having some weakness of flesh, and yet consolation 
and support from the Lord Himself to our poor weak faith, 
wherein, I believe, not a few among us shared—that because of 
their numbers, because of their advantages, because of their 
confidence, because of our weakness, because of our strait, we 
were in the mount, and in the mount the Lord would be 
seen, and that He would find out a way of deliverance and sal¬ 
vation for us ; and indeed we had our consolations and our 
hopes.” 

What language do you call this ? Is it fanaticism ? Is it 
hypocrisy ? 

Urged, it is said, by the clergy, who were admitted far too 
much to their councils—as a warrior and a general, Leslie 
appears to have made a movement in the disposition of his 
army which was fatally wrong. He is spoken of as a wise, 
clear-sighted man, and upon many previous occasions he had 
shown himself to be so ; and it is possible that had he seized 
upon all the advantages of his position he might have been 
master of the field, but for that fatal movement of the enemy, 
scarcely noticed by any eye but the active, penetrating glance 
of Cromwell’s. “ With wonderful foresight,” says Mr. Fors¬ 
ter, “ that almost justified the inspiration attributed to him, 
he anticipated some movement by which they might now be 
enabled to attempt the enemy, and secure the advantage of a 
first attack ; and, as he beheld it, he exclaimed, in one of those 
strong bursts of enthusiasm which ever and anon fell upon 
him, ‘ The Lord hath delivered them into our hands ! ’ ” 

Yes, •with a vigor only equalled by Shakespeare’s descrip¬ 
tions of night on the fields of Agincourt and Bosworth, Carlyle 
has sketched for us the disposition of those defiant hosts on 
this night of the 2d of September, a wild, wet night: “ The 


154 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


harvest moon wades deep among clouds of sleet and hail. 
Whoever has a heart for prayer, let him pray now, for the 
wrestle of death is at hand. Pray, and withal, keep his powder 
dry ! and be ready for extremities, and quit himself like a 
man. We English have some tact, the Scots have none. The 
hoarse sea moans bodeful, swinging low and heavy against 
those Whinstone cliffs ; the sea and the tempests are abroad, 
all else asleep but we—and there is One that rides on the wings 
of the wind. 7 ’ 

The orders of the Scots were to extinguish their matches, to 
cower under the shocks of corn, and seek some imperfect 
shelter and sleep ; to-morrow night, for most of them, the 
sleep will be perfect enough, whatever the shelter may be. 
The order to the English was, to stand to their arms, or to lie 
within reach of them all night. Some waking soldiers in the 
English army were holding prayer-meetings too. By moon¬ 
light, as the gray heavy morning broke over St. Abb’s Head 
its first faint streak, the first peal of the trumpets ran along the 
Scottish host. But how unprepared were they then for the 
loud reply of the English host, and for the thunder of their 
cannons upon their lines. 

Terrible was the awakening of the Scottish soldiers ; and 
their matches all out : the battle-cry rushed along the lines—• 
“ The Covenant ! The Covenant !” but it soon became more 
and more feeble, while yet high and strong, amid the war of 
the trumpets and the musketry, arose the watchword of Crom¬ 
well : “ The Lord of Hosts ! The Lord of Hosts !” The 
battle-cry of Luther was in that hour the charging word of the 
English Puritans. 

Terrible ! but short as terrible ! Cromwell had seized the 
moment and the place. The hour and the man met there ; in 
overthrowing the one flank of the enemy’s line, he made them 
the authors of their own defeat. A thick fog, too, had embar¬ 
rassed their movements ; their very numbers became a source 
of confusion. But now over St. Abb’s Head the sun suddenly 
appeared, crimsoning the sea, scattering the fogs away. Tin? 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


155 


Scottish, army were seen flying in all directions—flying, and so 
brief a fight ! “ They run !” said Cromwell ; “I protest they 

run !” and catching inspiration, doubtless, from the bright 
shining of the daybeam, “ Inspired,” says Mr. Forster, “ by 
the thought of a triumph so mighty and resistless, his voice 
was again heard, ‘ Now let God arise, and let His enemies 
be scattered ! ’ ” 

It was a wonderful victory ; wonderful .even among wonder¬ 
ful triumphs ! To hear the shout sent up by the united Eng¬ 
lish army ; to see the general make a halt, and sing the one 
hundred and seventeenth Psalm upon the field. Wonderful 
that that immense army should thus be scattered—10,000 pris¬ 
oners taken, about 3000 slain, 200 colors, 15,000 stand of 
arms, and all the artillery !—and that Cromwell should not 
have lost of his army twenty men ! 

It is very beautiful to notice the humanity of Cromwell. 
He had been indisposed to fight these men, for their faith was 
very near to his own. They had denounced his party and his 
designs, as “ sectaries,” “ malignants,” and yet had elevated 
the Prince of Malignants to a place of honor and authority 
over them and had sought to crush out all religious liberty by 
imposing their ecclesiastical polity upon England. This Oliver 
had attempted to resist by peaceable means, as best he could. 
He wrote (as his letters and the public documents bear testi¬ 
mony) in the spirit of a Christian, to the men whom he looked 
upon as Christian brethren. “ I do beseech you in the bowels 
of Christ,” he writes, “ do believe that you may be mis¬ 
taken !” They persisted, we know, so they had to abide the 
consequences of, assuredly, a piece of illimitable folly ; and 
there was one Christian and Puritan army opposed to another. 
The sight was painful to Oliver. It is evident he would have 
avoided the battle-field, but it could not be avoided. He was 
standing there for the invaded liberties of England ; and, how¬ 
ever hostile to war the man was, the men who would build up 
the throne of Charles Stuart must understand that it was only 
with their own they had a right to meddle. 


156 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Hence he writes to General Leslie : 

“ From the Camp at Pentland Hills, 
14th August, 1650. 

u Sir,—I received yours of the 13th instant, with the paper 
you mentioned therein enclosed, which I caused to be read in 
the presence of so many officers as could well be gotten 
together, to which your trumpet can witness. We return you 
this answer ; by which I hope, in the Lord, it will appear that 
we continue the same we have professed ourselves to the honest 
people in Scotland ; wishing to them as to our own souls ; it 
being no part of Cur business to hinder any of them from wor¬ 
shipping God in that way they are satisfied in their consciences 
by the Word of God they ought, though different from us. 

“ But that under the pretence of the Covenant, mistaken, 
and wrested from the most native intent and equity thereof, a 
king should be taken in by you to be imposed upon us ; and 
this be called ‘ the cause of God and the kingdom ; ’ and this 
done upon ‘ the satisfaction of God’s people in both nations,’ 
as is alleged — together with a disowning of malignants ; 
although he [Charles Stuart] who is the head of them, in 
which all their hope and comfort lies, be received ; who, at 
this very instant, hath a popish army fighting for and under 
him in Ireland ; hath Prince Rupert, a man who hath had his 
hand deep in the blood of many innocent men in England, 
now in the head of our ships, stolen from us on a malignant 
account ; hath the French and Irish ships daily making depre¬ 
dations on our coast ; and strong combinations by the malig¬ 
nants in England, to raise armies in our bowels, by virtue of 
his commissions, who hath of late issued out very many for 
that purpose ;—how the godly interest you pretend you have 
received him upon, and the malignant interests in their ends 
and consequences all centering in this man, can be secured, we 
cannot discern. 

And how we should believe, that while known and notori¬ 
ous malignants are fighting and plotting against us on the one 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


157 


hand, and you declaring for him on the other, it should not be 
an ‘ espousing of a malignant party’s quarrel or interest ; ’ but 
be a mere ‘ fighting upon former grounds and principles, and 
in the defence of the cause of God and the kingdoms,’ as hath 
been these twelve years last past ; as you say ; how this should 
be for the security and satisfaction of God’s people in both 
nations, or how the opposing of this should render us enemies 
to the godly with you, we cannot well understand.” 

These citations, and others which might be given, illustrate 
the pacific and upright dispositions, both in the mind of the 
general and the party he represented. And upon the field of 
battle, after Dunbar fight was over, his heart moved with pity 
to the helpless and hapless crowds crushed down in the death 
struggle, he issued the following 

“ Proclamation. 

“ Forasmuch, as I understand there are several soldiers of 
the enemy’s army yet abiding in the field, who by reason of 
their wounds could not march from thence : 

“ These are therefore to give notice to the inhabitants of this 
nation, That they may have, and hereby have, free liberty to 
repair to the fields aforesaid : and, with their carts, or in any 
other peaceable way, to carry away the said soldiers to such 
places as they shall think fit :—provided they meddle not with, 
or take away, any of the arms there. And all officers and 
soldiers are to take notice that the same is permitted. 

“ Given under my hand, at Dunbar, 4th September, 1650. 

“ Oliver Cromwell.” 

The neighboring peasantry came with eight wagons, and 
these mournful funeral trains retired in peace with their 
wretched burdens. 

It is also very beautiful to turn from the general to the hus¬ 
band, and to find on the morrow after the battle, while yet on 
the field, so tender a line as the following—so unaffected, no 


158 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


boasting, scarce an allusion to the difficulty or the deliverance, 
but a simple gleam of affection playing forth from the heart of 
the strong man. 

“For my beloved wife, Elizabeth Cromwell, at the Cockpit:* 
These. 

“ Dunbar, 4tli September, 1650. 

“ My Dearest, — I have not leisure to write much. But I 
could chide thee that in many of thy letters thou writest to 
me, that I should not be unmindful of thee and thy little ones. 
Truly, if I love thee not too well, I think I err not on the 
other hand much. Thou art dearer to me than any other creat¬ 
ure : let that suffice. 

“ The Lord hath showed us an exceeding mercy ; who can 
tell how it is ! My weak faith has been upheld. I have been 
in my inward man marvellously supported, though, I assure 
thee, I grow an old man, and feel infirmities of age marvel¬ 
lously creeping on me. Would my corruptions did as fast 
decrease ! Pray on my behalf in the latter respect. The par 
ticulars of our late success Harry Vane or Gilbert Pickering 
will impart to thee. My love to all dear friends. I rest thine, 

“ Oliver Cromwell.” 

The letters on that 4th of September are various pious words 
hastily penned. Here are some of his words to Ireton in 
Ireland : 

“ I remember you at the throne of grace. I heard of the 
Lord’s good hand with you in reducing Waterford, Duncannon, 
and Carlow : His name be praised. 

“We have been engaged upon a service fullest of trial ever 
poor creatures were upon. We made great professions of love, 
knowing we were to deal with many who were godly, and who 

* The Cockpit was then and long afterward a sumptuous royal 
lodging in Whitehall: Henry VIII.’s place of cock-fighting. Crom¬ 
well’s family removed thither, by vote of the Commons, during the 
Irish campaign. The present Privy Council office is built on its site. 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


159 


pretended to be stumbled at our invasion. We were rejected 
again and again.” 

By letters like these we are admitted into the most inner 
sanctuary of Cromwell’s life ; and nowhere do we more clearly 
see its beauty. Beauty ! To many this term will seem 
strange, applied to this man ; but does not beauty ever dwell 
with strength ?—and tenderness, is it not the companion of 
power ? The weak and luxurious Charles could not write such 
letters. It is very charming to find such fresh and beautiful 
feelings playing round and through the spirit of a man who 
was faded and worn down with the burden of overwhelming 
power, who had ascended to the very highest height of earthly 
authority. Here is another letter to his wife, bearing nearly 
the same date : 

“ My Dearest,— I praise the Lord that I have increased in 
strength in my outward man ; but that will not satisfy me, 
except I get a heart to love and serve my heavenly Father 
better, and get more of the light of His countenance, which is 
better than life, and more power over my corruptions. In 
these hopes I wait, and am not without expectation of a 
gracious return. Pray for me ; truly I do daily for thee and 
the dear family ; and God Almighty bless you all with His 
spiritual blessings. 

“ Mind poor Betty of the Lord’s great mercy. Oh, I desire 
her not only to seek the Lord in her necessity, but in deed and 
in truth to turn to the Lord, and to keep close to Him, and to 
take heed of a departing heart, and of being cozened with 
worldly vanities, and worldly company, which I doubt she is 
too subject to. I earnestly and frequently pray for her, and for 
him. Truly they are dear to me, very dear ; and I am in fear 
lest Satan should deceive them, knowing how weak our hearts 
are, and how subtle the adversary is, and what way the deceit¬ 
fulness of our hearts and the vain world make for his tempta¬ 
tions. The Lord give them truth of heart to Him. Let them 
take Him in truth, and they shall find Him. 


160 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


“ My love to the dear little ones ; I pray for them. I thank 
them for their letters ; let me have them often. 

“ Beware of my Lord Herbert’s resort to your house. If 
he do so, it may occasion scandal, as if I were bargaining with 
him. Indeed, be wise ; you know my meaning. Mind Sir 
Harry Vane of the business of my estate ; Mr. Floyd knows 
my mind in that matter. 

“ B Dick Cromwell and his wife be with you, my dear love 
to them. I pray for them. They shall, God willing, hear 
from me. I love them very dearly. Truly I am not able as 
yet to write much ; I am weary, and rest thine, 

“ Oliver Cromwell.” 

We have also another short epistle sent to the same lady 
next month. 

“My Dearest, —I could not satisfy myself to omit this 
post, although I have not much to write ; yet, indeed, I love 
to write to my dear, who is very much in my heart. It joys 
me to hear thy soul prospereth. The Lord increase His favors 
to thee more and more. The greatest good thy soul can wish 
is, that the Lord lift upon thee the light of His countenance, 
which is better than life. The Lord bless all thy good counsel 
and example to all those about thee, and hear thy prayers, and 
accept thee always. 

“lam glad to hear thy son and daughter are with thee. I 
hope thou wilt have some good opportunity of good advice to 
him. Present my duty to my mother, my love to all the 
family. Still pray for thine, 

“ Oliver Cromwell.’’ 

Indeed, at this point in Cromwell’s history, we might pause 
long, and notice many touches—traces of his love for the 
various members of his family. We might run back through 
the several past years of his life, and notice the combination of 
affection, piety, and purity developed in his correspondence. 
He never writes to his daughters without guiding them to the 
best life. He never writes to his son without an effort to lead 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


161 


him to the best thoughts and noblest actions, and this with no 
spirit of acrimon}’- or sternness, but with real cheerfulness. 
This is very noticeable, among other things, the real kindliness 
of the man, the homeliness of his feelings, the play of sunny 
good-humor through his thoughts, and through his pen also. 
Here is a letter which it may be interesting to read : 

“For my beloved daughter , Bridget Ireton, at Cornbury, the 
General's Quarters : These. 

“ London, 25th October, 1646. 

“ Dear Daughter, —I write not to thy husband ; partly to 
avoid trouble, for one line of mine begets many of his, which 
I doubt makes him sit up too late ; partly because I am myself 
indisposed [i.e., not in the mood] at this time, having some 
other considerations. 

“ Your friends at Ely are well ; your sister Claypole is, I 
trust in mercy, exercised with some perplexed thoughts. She 
sees her own vanity and carnal mind—bewailing it. She seeks 
after (as I hope also) what will satisfy. And thus to be a seeker 
is to be one of the best sect next to a finder / and such a one 
shall every faithful humble seeker beat the end. Happy seeker, 
happy finder ! Who ever tasted that the Lord is gracious, 
without some sense of self, vanity, and badness ? Who ever 
tasted that graciousness of His, and could go less in desire 
[i.e. because less desirous\, less pressing after full enjoyment ? 
Dear heart, press on ; let not thy husband, let not anything 
cool thy affections after Christ. I hope he [ thy husband ] will 
be an occasion to inflame them. That which is best worthy of 
love in thy husband is that of the image of Christ he bears. 
Look on that, and love it best, and all the rest for that. I 
pray for thee and him ; do so for me. 

“ Mv service and dear affections to the General and Gen- 
eraless. I hear she is very kind to thee ; it adds to all other 
bligations. I am, 

“ Thy dear father, 

“ Oliver Cromwell.” 


162 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


“ Delicacy of sentiment,” says Dr. D’Aubigne, “ the 
domestic virtues, and paternal love, are among the features by 
which Cromwell is best characterized.” Here again is a letter 
to one of his daughters, when the writer was on board the 
John, on his expedition to Ireland : 

“ My Dear Daughter, —Your letter was very welcome to 
me. I like to see anything from your hand ; because, indeed, I 
stick not to say I do entirely love you. And, therefore, Ihope a 
word of advice will not be unwelcome nor unacceptable to thee. 

“ I desire you both to make it, above all things, your busi¬ 
ness to seek the Lord ; to be frequently calling upon Him that 
He would manifest Himself to you in His Son ; and be listen¬ 
ing what returns He makes to you, for He will be speaking in 
your ear and your heart if you attend thereunto. I desire you 
to provoke your husband thereunto. As for the pleasure of 
this life, and outward business, let that be upon the bye. Be 
above all these things by faith in Christ, and then you shall 
have the true use and comfort of them, and not otherwise. I 
have much satisfaction in hope your spirit is this way set ; and 
I desire you may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that I may hear thereof. 
The Lord is very near, which we see by His wonderful works ; 
and, therefore, He looks that we of this generation draw near 
to Him. This late great mercy of Ireland is a great manifesta¬ 
tion thereof ; your husband will acquaint you with it. We 
should be much stirred up in our spirits to thankfulness. We 
much need the spirit of Christ to enable us to praise God for 
so admirable a mercy. 

“ The Lord bless thee, my dear daughter ! 

u I rest, thy loving father, 

“ Oliver Cromwell.” 

These, then, are the letters of this man (in the which we 
have been drawn away by the letter to his wife after Dunbar, 
and have a little confused dates), and he has been regarded as 
4 kind of ogre by all historians ! These are the letters of the 


CROMWELL AT DUNBAR. 


163 


warrior ; do they not reveal the Christian ? Do they not 
show a character strong in its simplicity, as we have beheld it 
before strong in its mailed armor of proof and in its sagacity ? 
Cromwell has been judged from a wrong centre. Could a kid¬ 
skinned time-server like Clarendon understand him ? Could a 
sceptic like Hume understand him ? Could a prejudiced 
partisan like Forster understand him ? Let the reader, at this 
point of Cromwell’s history, look at the great Maccabseus of 
the Commonwealth, and let him glance at the circumstances of 
the history too, and the times. What would have been the 
state of the land had there been no Cromwell, or had Cromwell 
been killed on the field of Dunbar or Worcester ?—for with the 
battle of Worcester, which we are presently to recite, terminat¬ 
ed the Second Civil War ? Charles II. fled in hopeless deso¬ 
lation to France, to exist as the pensioned pauper of the French 
king. The royal power was now fairly beaten down in Eng¬ 
land. Let the malignant sneerer, who has no words but com¬ 
monplace abuse to bestow upon the great English hero, 
attempt to realize what the land would have been, must have 
been, without him, rent in factions, almost all equally strong. 
An army then without a leader, dreamy speculators determined 
to impose their theories upon the kingdom, and so inflict upon 
the land the miseries of anarchy, as in the French Revolution ; 
or the horrors of persecution, as in Boston and the New Eng¬ 
land States. Cromwell was the power raised up by Providence 
to save England from this. Never in the history of the world 
had a man a more difficult task to perform ; but he performed 
it, because he brought to the task, in addition to the most 
remarkable combination of mental requisites ever assembled 
together in one man—forming a sort of mythic personage, and 
reminding us of Theseus or Hercules—in addition to these, we 
say, he brought piety of the sublimest order, and singleness of 
purpose lofty as that of a Hebrew prophet, but conjoined to a 
largeness of toleration for all religious differences, for which 
we know not where to find a parallel. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


CROMWELL AT WORCESTER, AND THE ROMANCE OF BOSCOBEL. 

Whoever advised Charles, the young king of Scots, after 
the battle of Dunbar and the entire conquest of the Presby¬ 
terian cause by Cromwell, to invade England, had but little 
ability to read in the book of passing events. There was surely 
little to encourage such an attempt in the history of what had 
recently been achieved, in the character of Cromwell, or in 
the determination of the English people ; probably the most 
encouraging circumstance was, that immediately after the battle 
of Dunbar, Cromwell was struck down by a serious and pro¬ 
tracted illness. The young king came across the Border, 
reached Lancashire, in spite of very sorry success, apparently 
in hopeful and buoyant spirits. He had passed by Kendal and 
Preston to Warrington, there he received a check from Harri¬ 
son and Lambert ; he forced on his way, called on Shrewsbury, 
in passing, to surrender, but without effect. He then pushed 
on to Worcester. The city opened its gates and received the 
king and his army with every demonstration of affection, they 
provided for their many and grievous wants, and the mayor 
and aldermen, with all the solemnity and circumstance they 
could command, attended the Herald who proclaimed Charles 
king of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland. Vain and 
empty boastfulness ! But there was a stir of terror in Eng¬ 
land ; London especially gave way to fearful alarms. A meas¬ 
ure of success, and Charles and the army, which had pushed 
on from Scotland so far into one of the chief midland cities of 
England, would speedily be before the metropolis ; and Crom¬ 
well and his strong men were away. Even lion-hearted Brad¬ 
shaw was in fear. How was it that Cromwell had permitted 
this strange stride to be taken by the young man and his 
foolish advisers ? The fidelity of Cromwell was suspected ; a. 



CROMWELL AT WORCESTER. 


165 


universal panic of fear was spreading on every Land. It is 
quite noticeable how, as in this instance, writers like Mrs. 
Hutchinson, who never miss their opportunity of uttering their 
bitterness or their suspicions concerning Cromwell, are as full 
of alarm when he is absent from the spot which his genius 
alone could save. In this case there was little need for their 
fear ; even while they were in their panic of wonder Cromwell 
had already saved them. He came on with a tremendous 
army, nearly three times as large as that which had conquered 
at Dunbar., 

With nearly 30,000 men, on the 28th of August, 1651, he 
reached Worcester, and had all his regiments in position within 
two miles of the city. As to the condition of the royal army, 
hope and confidence appear to have made them so presumptu¬ 
ous that their chief officers could not abstain from some internal 
dissensions. “ There was no good understanding,” says Clar¬ 
endon, “ between the officers of the army.” The army was 
mostly composed of Scots ; and yet, by Clarendon’s testimony, 
there was a proposal to supersede old David Leslie in the com¬ 
mand, and Buckingham, by the same authority, appears to 
have been desirous that the honor of the chief command should 
be conferred upon himself, urging that as it was unreasonable, 
while they were in Scotland, to put any other in command over 
Leslie, so now it was unreasonable, while they were in Eng¬ 
land, and hoped to increase the army by the access of the 
English, upon whom their principal dependence would be, to 
expect they would be willing to serve under Leslie ; and it 
would not consist with the honor of any peer of England to 
receive his orders. Charles was surprised, and urged against 
the duke his youth ; the duke, with sufficient self-confidence, 
urged again, that Henry IV. of France had won a great battle 
when he was younger. The king, however, refused to listen 
to the counsels of his ill-adviser, and the duke did not recover 
from his ill humor while the army remained in Worcester. 
The army itself, which in truth must have been a strange array 
of ragged regiments, felt comfortable ; they liked their quar- 


166 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ters, and did not desire to quit them till they should be 
thoroughly refreshed. They were not desirous of marching 
farther on ; Worcester was a good post, standing in a fertile 
region in the very heart of the kingdom ; and if Cromwell 
must be met, it appears to have been generally thought it 
would be better to meet him there. So Charles abandoned his 
first intention to proceed on to London, and every effort was 
made to strengthen the position by repairing the breaches of 
the walls, and throwing up forts ; and it is impossible to resist 
the impression that there was a generally diffused faith that, in 
this place the tide of conflict and conquest was to turn, and 
now “ the king would enjoy his own again.” 

Even yet they did not know the man who was marching 
upon them, they did not understand as yet the shrewdness of 
that eye, and the resources of that brain. The battle of Wor¬ 
cester, it will be seen at once, differs from any of the other 
great battles which Cromwell fought, and where his genius 
rose victorious. Marston and Naseby, and even Dunbar, were 
on the open plain ; but Worcester was a city in possession, 
and the Royalists no doubt expected, from the security of their 
position, a protracted siege. Worcester stands, as the reader 
knows, on the right bank of the Severn, and something had 
been done by the Royalists to increase its means of resistance. 
Cromwell, of course, found all the bridges broken down and 
destroyed ; not a boat or punt was to be seen, while, appar¬ 
ently securely fortified, there on the opposite side were seen 
the heights of the beautiful old city, not less strong than beau¬ 
tiful. Even Clarendon seems scarcely able to repress his feel¬ 
ings of admiration, as he says, “ Cromwell, without troubling 
himself with the formality of a siege, marched directly on as 
to a prey, and possessed himself at once of the hill and all the 
other places of advantage with very little opposition.” How 
did he perform this feat ? It may be supposed he knew what 
he would do before he arrived on the scene of action. While 
the Royalists felt their security from the broad river of the 
Severn, and the narrower river of the little Teme, the great 


CROMWELL AT WORCESTER. 


167 


general had no sooner arrived than he proceeded at once to 
throw his army astride across the two rivers by means of pon¬ 
toons ; then he laid a bridge across the Teme close to its junc¬ 
tion with the Severn. He used no delay, none of the circum¬ 
spection which it was supposed he would so naturally and 
necessarily employ. He soon forced his way through the 
surprised and weak defenders against the ingress, as the troops 
landed by the bridges ; and in fact, the battle of Worcester 
may be said to have been fought in Worcester streets. Crom¬ 
well himself soon seized upon the guns of what was called the 
royal fort, and played them upon the fugitives. The battle 
raged all round, at every point, although it appears to have 
been decided under the walls of the town. There Cromwell, 
with his own Ironsides around him, held the conflict for three 
hours, “ as stiff a contest,” he wrote afterward, “ for many 
hours, including both sides of the river, as he had ever seen.” 
Some attempts have been made to show that Charles acquitted 
himself with extraordinary bravery on this occasion ; the effort 
is not successful, the description of the king’s heroism at the 
battle of Worcester has no clear foundation. It is more prob¬ 
able that he looked down upon the rout of battle from the 
Cathedral tower ; and at last, seeing all hope gone and all 
courage lost, he cried out, “ I had rather that you would shoot 
me than keep me alive to see the sad consequences of this fatal 
day. ’ ’ The army was cut to pieces, most of the great generals 
and leaders were taken prisoners, the streets were filled with 
the bodies of horses and men. By six in the evening Charles 
had fled through St. Martin’s gate. Just outside the town he 
tried to rally his men ; but it was to no purpose, Worcester lay 
behind him, its houses pillaged, its citizens slain for his sake, 
and he forced to fly for his life. And who could have 
expected any other ending ? A boy like Charles, with such an 
army, a handful of men badly supplied with ammunition, the 
leaders of the army quarrelling among themselves ; and these 
before a veteran like Cromwell, with all England at his back. 
The bravery and devotedness of the men who followed Charles 


168 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


may command respect, and shed some lustre over what must be 
regarded as a worthless cause, but that is all. So Charles fled 
through the streets in piteous despair on the evening of that 
third of September, Cromwell’s fortunate day, the anniversary 
of the battle of Dunbar. At ten o’clock at night he sat down, 
as he says, weary and scarcely able to write ; yet he wrote to 
the Parliament of England : “ The dimensions of this mercy 
are above my thoughts, it is for aught I know a crowning 
mercy.” They still remember that day in Worcester, and still 
point out many of the places connected with the story of the 
battle : and in Perry W r ood, where Cromwell first took up his 
position, there is a tree, which the peasant shows to those who 
desire to see it, where the devil, Cromwell’s intimate friend, 
appeared to him and gave him the promise of victory. The 
railway indeed runs over the ground where the hottest engage¬ 
ment took place ; Sidbury and St. Martin’s have disappeared, 
and large lime trees grow on the site of the Royal Fort, where 
the Royalist guns were seized by Cromwell and turned upon 
the Royalist army ; but the rooms are still shown where Charles 
slept, and w r here the Duke of Hamilton, who was wounded in 
the action, died. Powick old bridge, which occupies a con¬ 
spicuous place in the story of the battle, still stands crooked 
and narrow, spanning with massive arches and abutments the 
famous streams of the Teme and Laughern. Perhaps the most 
curious item memorializing the famous conflict is in the 
corporation records, with reference to the poor Scotch soldiers : 
“ Paid for pitch and rosin to perfume the Hall after the Scots, 
two shillings.” Indeed, that fine old Hall needed perfuming 
and cleansing, for it was drenched with blood, but rather the 
blood of the English than the Scotch ; for it was within its 
walls that the English Cavaliers made a last and desperate 
resistance, and they were all cut to pieces or made prisoners. 
This was the last and great decisive conflict ; the defeat of 
Worcester settled the Royal cause, and doomed it, with its 
chief and his adherents, to banishment, until the strong victor 
who had scattered the royal rabble at Worcester, should him¬ 
self be conquered by death. 


CROMWELL AT WORCESTER. 


160 


And here, before we pass on with the stream of circumstance 
in Cromwell’s life, shall we turn for a few moments to the 
singular episode of the strange adventures of the Ro) 7 al fugitive 
Charles, after the battle of Worcester ? We may well do so if 
we are disposed to accept the words of Clarendon, who says, 
“ It is a great pity that there was never a journal made of that 
miraculous deliverance, in which there might be seen so many 
visible impressions of the immediate hand of God !” But this 
language is quite a modest estimate compared with what is said 
by Mistress Wyndham, the wife or sister of Colonel Wyndham, 
who took a considerable share in the preservation of the king ; 
this lady says, “It is a story in which the constellations of 
Providence are so refulgent, that their light is sufficient to con¬ 
fute all the atheists in the world, and to enforce all persons 
whose faculties are not pertinaciously depraved to acknowledge 
the watchful eye of God from above, looking upon all actions 
of men here below, making even the most wicked subservient 
to His just and glorious designs. For the Almighty so closely 
covered the king with the wing of Ilis protection, and so 
+. clouded the understandings of his cruel enemies, that the most 
piercing eye of malice could not see, nor the most barbarous 
bloody hand offer violence to, his sacred person, God smiting 
his pursuers as once he did the Sodomites, with blindness.” 
The language of Mistress Wyndham is certainly pitched in an 
exalted key, but the story is as certainly very remarkable. A 
story is told, how man } 7 years since, before the age of railways, 
a nobleman and his lady, with their infant child, travelling in a 
wild neighborhood, were overtaken by a snowstorm and com¬ 
pelled to seek shelter in a rude shepherd’s hut ; when the 
nurse, who was in attendance upon her lord and lady, began 
undressing the infant by the side of the warm fire, the inhabi¬ 
tants of the hut gazed in awe and silence at the process. As 
the little one was disrobed of its silken frock and fine linen, 
and rich dress after dress was taken away, still the shepherd 
and his wife gazed with awe, until, when the process of 
undressing was completed, and the naked baby was being 


170 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


washed and warmed by the fire, when all the wrappages and 
outer husks were peeled off, the shepherd and his wife 
exclaimed, “ Why, it’s just like one of ours !” But it is a 
very difficult thing to understand that kings and queens and 
princes are just like one of us when their state robes are off ; 
and thus the adventures of Charles derive their interest and 
sanctity from the supposed importance of the person, and the 
worship with which he is regarded arises from the sense of the 
place he fills, and his essential importance to the future 
schemes of Almighty Providence. And still it certainly is one 
of the most interesting pieces of English folklore. It has been 
said, but we a little doubt the truth of the saying, that there is 
no country where, in so small a space as in England, so much 
and so many relics of the past are crowded together ; and it is 
farther often said, that of all romantic tales in English history, 
that of King Charles’s flight is the most so. Hairbreadth 
escapes, sufferings, surprises, and disguises shed quite a ficti¬ 
tious halo around one who was, after all, a very mean and 
commonplace character. The adventures of Charles, however, 
are indeed full of interest, and the volume of Boscobel Tracts 
is a charming story of old halls, many of them now gone, 
many of them still standing, gray and weather-worn, full of 
hiding-places, where the prince found a refuge. The escape of 
Charles is one of those stories which the English peasant has in 
many parts of England told pleasantly in his own rude way. 
It is a wonderful story of human fidelity, for though a thousand 
pounds was set upon the capture of Charles, and perhaps more 
than a score of people knew the route he was taking, not one 
of them ever revealed it, not one broke faith, peasant and peer 
were equally true ; cottage and hall were equally open to the 
royal fugitive ; indeed, it is a story which if told of a better 
man might bring tears into the eyes. From that fatal evening, 
when flying along from Worcester he threw his blue ribbon and 
garter and princely ornaments away, when his long black hair 
was cropped off country fashion, when he climbed up into the 
Boscobel oak, and amid its thick boughs could look down, and 


CROMWELL AT WORCESTER. 


m 


peep, and see the red coats of his enemies passing beneath 
them, till 

“ When all the paths were dim, 

And far below the Roundhead rode 
And hummed a surly hymn, ” 

until, by a strangely circuitous route, he reached Brighthelm- 
stone, or Brighton, and from thence embarked in Captain Tat- 
tersal’s little vessel from Sboreham,* it is a constant succession 
of adventures which from that day to this have furnished sub¬ 
jects for the writers of fiction. Lord Clarendon devotes a good 
many pages to the story of these adventures ; but he gives no 
honor to the humbler agents who secured the king’s escape : 
the Penderels, for instance, to whom the king always expressed 
so much gratitude, they are unmentioned ; nor does the faith¬ 
ful Jane Lane receive the notice she deserves ; quite worthy 
she appears of all the fame which has waited upon Flora Mac¬ 
donald, who took a similar part in rescuing a later member of 
the house of Stuart from similar dangers. There is a quiet and 
unassuming grace about Jane Lane which gives a real charm to 
her character. The way was beset with stories ; and it must 
have been an anxious time to Charles. But some of his 
retreats, standing still, glow with the lights of the old romantic 
days : the old house at Trent, for instance, in whose secret 
chambers he stayed so long, and from whence he heard a 
Roundhead soldier boasting that he had slain the king with his 

* In reference to this a ballad, by the present writer, called a 
Farewell to Brighton Bells, sings : 

“ Again the old bells clang’d and clash’d, to greet the merry day, 

When scapegrace Charles came back again, that twenty-ninth of 
May ; 

And in the Old King’s Head a group of merry fishers chat, 

Whilst pointing to the chair in which, disguised, the monarch sat! 

And many a tale that night was told,—the tankard’s power pre¬ 
vail’d,— 

How, but for Brighton’s loyalty, e’en Boscobel had fail’d ; 

I doubt me much that Brighton ale display’d a tyrant’s power, 

In drinking bold Dick Tattersal, the hero of the hour!” 


172 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


own hands, and from whence he could see the bonfires the 
people kindled in their joy, and hear his own death knell rung 
from the old church tower. Sometimes the king was ‘ ‘ Will 
Jones,” a woodman ; then he was changed into “ Will Jack- 
son,”'a groom, clad in gray cloth. Once he had to take Jane 
Lane’s horse to a smithy, it had cast a shoe, and the smith 
began wailing the non-capture of that rogue Charles Stuart, 
and the king chimed in, that if that rogue could only be taken, 
he deserved hanging more than all the rest, for bringing in the 
Scots. Once, close to Stratford, “ Will Jackson,” in pursu¬ 
ance of his disguise, was sent into the kitchen, where the cook- 
maid, who was providing supper, desired him to wind up the 
jack ; he was obedient, but he did not do it in the right way, 
which led the maid with some passion to ask, “ What country¬ 
man are you, that you know not how to wind up a jack?” 
“ Will Jackson” appears to have answered very satisfactorily : 
“ I am a poor tenant’s son of Colonel Lane, in Staffordshire ; 
we seldom have roast meat, and when we have, we don’t make 
use of a jack,” and so the maid’s anger was appeased. That 
old jack is still hanging up beside the fireplace, but those who 
have seen it within the last few years say that it would now 
puzzle a wiser man than Charles to wind it up. Another story 
tells how the king was hard pressed by soldiers in pursuit of 
him, and how they sought for him all over the house, and in 
the kitchen too ; but here the girl in the kitchen knew him, 
for indeed he was there, and as they entered he looked with 
trepidation round him, perhaps giving up all for lost now ; but 
the cook hit him a smart rap with the basting ladle, exclaim¬ 
ing, “ Now, then, go on with thy work ; what art thou looking 
about for ?” And the manoeuvre was effectual, and the soldiers 
started on another track. The wanderings seem to have been 
long, nor was it until Wednesday, October 15th, the same day 
on which the gallant Lord Derby laid his head upon the 
scaffold at Bolton, in Lancashire, and probably about the same 
time in the day, that the king was able to set sail for the coast 
of Normandy. The language of Loid Clarendon concerning 


CROMWELL AT WORCESTER. 


173 


the adventures and ultimate restoration of the king reads so 
like a piece of mere grim satire that we cannot but pause for a 
moment to quote them here : 

“We may tell those desperate wretches, who yet harbor in 
their thoughts wicked designs against the sacred person of the 
king, in order to the compassing of their own imaginations, 
that God Almighty would not have led him through so many 
wildernesses of afflictions of all kinds, conducted him through 
so many perils by sea, and perils by land, snatched him out of 
the midst of this kingdom when it was not worthy of him, and 
when the hands of his enemies were even upon him, when they 
thought themselves so sure of him that they would bid so cheap 
and so vile a price for him : He would not in that article have 
so covered him with a cloud, that he travelled even with some 
pleasure and great observation through the midst of his 
enemies : He would not so wonderfully have new modelled 
that army ; so inspired their hearts, and the hearts of the 
whole nation, with an honest and impatient longing for the 
return of their dear sovereign, and in the meantime have exer¬ 
cised him (which had little less of Providence in it than the 
other) with those unnatural, or at least unusual, disrespects and 
reproaches abroad, that he might have a harmless and an inno¬ 
cent appetite to his own country, and return to his own people, 
with a full value, and the whole unwasted bulk of his affec¬ 
tions, without being corrupted and biased by extraordinary 
foreign obligations ; God Almighty would not have done all 
this but for a servant whom He will always preserve as the 
apple of His own eye, and always defend from the most secret 
machinations of his enemies.” 

When the king came back, shall we say that it was to his 
honor that he remembered with gratitude the services of Jane 
Lane—by that time Lady Fisher—and the Penderels ? It 
would have been an addition to his perpetual dishonor had he 
forgotten them, had he not sought them out with the intention 
to distinguish them. He even settled a sum upon them in 
acknowledgment of their services and fidelity to him ; but 


174 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


these promises appear in a short time to have failed in fulfil¬ 
ment. But the interviews they had with the king in London 
are interesting. Charles wrote a very handsome letter to Lady 
Fisher, before the Restoration, full of respect and gratitude, 
and signing himself, “ Your most assured and constant friend. ’ 9 
. Richard Penderel, Charles introduced to his Court saying, 
“ The simplest rustic who serves his sovereign in the time of 
need to the utmost extent of his ability, is as deserving of our 
commendation as the victorious leader of thousands. Friend 
Richard,” continued the king, “ I am glad to see thee ; thou 
wert my preserver and conductor, the bright star that showed 
me to my Bethlehem, for which kindness I will engrave thy 
memory on the tablet of a faithful heart.” Turning to the 
lords the king said, “ My lords, I pray you respect this good 
man for my sake. Master Richard, be bold and tell these lords 
what passed among us when I had quitted the oak at Boscobel 
to reach Pit Leason.” Altogether the king—who is assuredly 
no favorite with this present writer, who also much wonders at 
the Providence which saved him, if he may say it without 
irreverence, when so many better men fell as sacrifices to the 
passion, the caprice, or the indignation of the hour—may be 
more favorably viewed in his adventures through those old 
villages, ancient halls, and wayside inns, and in his dealings 
with the humble attendants who risked for him their lives in 
their obscure service, than in any other of the incidents and 
chapters of his discreditable career. 


CHAPTER XIV, 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 

Passing over much else, there is one circumstance and scene 
in the life of Cornwell which has ever been surrounded with 
difficulty, his great act of usurpation when he assumed the 
power. We suppose that scene is one of the most memorable 
of any ; it is written upon our recollection from our early read¬ 
ing. The Long Parliament is associated with much that is 
most illustrious in the annals of those days ; but we must 
remember that those achievements were associated with its very 
early annals. When Cromwell laid his hand so rudely on the 
symbols of power, Pym and Hampden were dead, and many 
besides, who, although less known, had given effect to its 
administrative character. The talk then held about the settle¬ 
ment of Government, the unending source of interminable talk, 
had degenerated into a mere republican jangle. Wild theories 
were woven through the foggy archways of dreamy brains. 
Say what we will of that Long Parliament, it had exercised 
lately little power in governing the nation ; a noisy, garrulous, 
chattering, self-opinionated old Parliament. Henry Hallam, 
whose witness is so true that from his verdict there is seldom 
any appeal, has said, “ It may be said, I think, with not 
greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts 
of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very few of political 
wisdom and courage, are recorded of them, from their quarrel 
with the king to their expulsion by Cromwell. ” This is 
always necessary to be borne in mind. The memories of many 
readers are so confused in the supposition that the Long Par¬ 
liament which Cromwell so rudely scattered was the same 
House which, in the earlier years of its history, had achieved 
for the country services so remarkable. Indeed, it was the 
same House, but how different. Its greatest spirits, as we 


176 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


have seen, were departed : Pym was dead, Hampden was 
dead. Cromwell, as he looked along its benches, would notice 
many a place vacated where once sat some strong friend of 
order and of freedom. It had so shrunken from honor that it 
had come to be called “ the Rump,” and reminds us of Sheri¬ 
dan’s description of a ministry in his day, of which only one 
faithful member was left, “ that all the honorable parts had 
vanished, and only left the sitting member behind.” It is true 
there were great and honorable names, but these also were 
associated with the most wild and fantastic dreams and 
schemes. Then, if the reader should desire to approve the 
present writer’s justice, let him turn to review the various ques¬ 
tions which, while most urgent and weighty matters were 
pressing, this “ Rump” devoted its time to discuss. Not 
indisposed itself to enter upon the work of persecution, it 
became unpopular throughout the land ; it was attacked by all 
parties ; it was urged even to dissolve itself. This, it persis¬ 
tently determined not to do ; and while accomplishing nothing 
for Government or for the people, on the twentieth of April, 
1653, while Cromwell was quietly sitting in his own “ lodg¬ 
ings” in Whitehall, there was brought to him a message, that 
at that very moment a Bill was being hurried through the 
House, by which this most comely piece of Government was 
resolving its own indefectible perpetuity, and thus attempting 
a great act of usurpation. Let the reader, therefore, distinctly 
understand that it was the usurpation of capability against 
incapability ; the House must be checkmated. Cromwell 
therefore immediately gathered his officers round him, and 
walked down to the assembly. 

Moments there assuredly are when the destiny of the nation 
hangs on one strong and supremely capable man ; when a 
nation can no more be saved, than a universe can be governed, 
by a Committee of Ways and Means. Committees are a fine 
expedient—a parliament is only a large national committee or 
club—but in moments of great exigency and danger a chief is 
wanted. Looking through all England at that moment, we 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 


177 


cannot find another man who could have been the great leader. 
Look round upon their ranks. There are men fiery in battle, 
and there are men with the clear and calm mind ; but England 
needed at that time a man of prompt and decisive instinct, 
and in Cromwell we behold such a man. He could not have 
written the “ Monarchy of Man” with Sir John Eliot, nor the 
“Science of Government” of Algernon Sydney, nor the 
“ Meditations” of Sir Harry Vane. But these men saw only 
in a straight line ; they saw only their own idea ; they were 
content to become—they all did become—martyrs to their 
idea. Cromwell’s eye swept the horizon, and he saw that 
England wanted equitable government, the rule of justice. He 
ruled not by the Presbyterian or the Republican or the Inde¬ 
pendent theory of justice. He instinctively apprehended the 
wants of men ; and hence, while he was, no doubt, in many 
directions hated—and perhaps few felt that his views exactly 
squared with theirs—all were compelled to feel that he alone 
was able to hold the restive horses along the dizzy and difficult 
crag ; he alone was able to govern without a theory, and there¬ 
fore justly. 

It is something striking to contrast the two men going down 
to the same House. Charles was a king, and he went to arrest 
the members and to assert that there was no law in England 
save his will ; but he went as king Nominal. Cromwell went 
with no royalty about him, yet he went as king Real; and he, 
too, went for the still more amazing purpose of daring that 
whole House, and turning it out into the streets. The intelli¬ 
gence which we have seen reached him that morning certainly 
might well fill him with alarm. It was the news of what 
would, if carried out, materially increase the difficulties of his 
position ; and he determined on the venture. Therefore, in 
his plain suit of black, with his gray worsted stockings, he 
went down to the House, and took his ordinary seat. But 
why do we describe the scene which has been described so 
often ? How restlessly he sat there. How h.e assayed several 
times to rise, and sunk back again upon his seat. How, at 


178 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


last, as the motion was about to be put, he sprang from his 
place, threw off his hat, and began to speak ; and how he 
began to speak in commendation of the Parliament ; then 
launched out in condemnation of their sins ; then, with most 
memorable words, took the Speaker from the chair, turned the 
members out, threw away the mace, emptied the celebrated 
chamber, locked the door, and walked away with the key in 
his pocket ! 

The inarticulateness of Cromwell has been commented upon. 
He speaks, but you cannot fathom all his meaning. Is not 
this the surest type and token of the master-man, be he states¬ 
man, or any kind of man ? Not even to himself surely was all 
his meaning revealed ; how could it be to those to whom he 
spoke ? Even to all the mightiest souls does thought lie deeper 
far than any speech. In all his words there is the heavy roll 
of a deep sea ; but this, when the fit of inspiration was upon 
him, was especially the case. Then, while the bright forks of 
lightning pierced far and deep through his words, he yet used 
many which were unintelligible to those to whom he spoke. 
It seems as though he could not always see, at the moment, 
what he was saying, but worked out his meaning into action 
through his speech. Nothing has been more commented upon 
than the reserve of Cromwell, as certain slanderers chooee to 
call it, his ‘ ‘ hypocrisy. ’ ’ Of course there was reserve ; 
secretiveness, if the reader will ; a poor statesman he if he have 
not this. Test of all power to command is the possibility of 
intellectual reserve in combination with moral sympathy. A 
famous instance of that we have in an interview with Ludlow ; 
a memorable afternoon. It was after there had been held a 
Council of State, and Cromwell whispered him that he wished 
to speak to him. Cromwell was just on his way to Scotland, 
to that sublime campaign of his in which occurred the grand 
episode of Dunbar. He took Ludlow into the queen’s guard- 
room, and there he talked to him some time, denouncing the 
tortuous jungle of English law ; speaking of the great provi¬ 
dences of God in England, and what might be done by a good 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 


1?9 


brave man. In particular, lie talked in a most unintelligible 
manner of the 11 Oth Psalm. It is not so unintelligible to us now. 

And we think this is the moment to say a few words upon 
that other ever difficult problem : What were Cromwell’s inten¬ 
tions with reference to himself and to Charles ? We cannot 
see that there is foundation for any other thought than that 
Cromwell especially intended to preserve English law ; and to 
him, we dare say, a king was not more sacred than a man, and 
a lawless king not so sacred as an obedient and law-keeping 
man. Yet we see no reason to think that he was beckoned on 
by any shades of unlawful ambition, nor do we see any reason 
to doubt that he did at one time fully intend to save the king. 
There is an important principle, to which we have already 
alluded, in Guizot’s story of the English Commonwealth, which 
we believe to be substantially sound and just—namely, “ That 
God does not grant to great men, who have set on disorder the 
foundations of their greatness, the power to regulate at their 
pleasure and for centuries, even according to their better de¬ 
sires, the government of nations.” This is true substantially. 
But it is also true that Charles had really set on disorder the 
foundations of his greatness. The race of men who first con¬ 
fronted Charles—Eliot, Pym, and Hampden especially—were 
men of law ; they no doubt desired to see the government set¬ 
tled in a constitutional manner. We do not believe that those 
first actors were republicans. Certainly not in the sense in 
which John Milton, Sir Harry Vane, Algernon Sydney, and 
Harrington were republicans. To them the great thing that 
England wanted was good, just, equitable law ; they were men 
who would have made some such arrangement as that which 
was actually made when William III. ascended the throne. 
The king threw all this desire into a hopeless imbroglio. The 
raising of his banner, and the subsequent civil war created a 
hopeless anarchy. Cromwell, although he had some education 
for the law, and was originally intended for the legal profes¬ 
sion, had little of the lawyer in his nature. Casuistries and 
.subtleties enough might spin their cobwebs through his brain, 


180 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


but they were not such as lawyers love, in catches and in 
technicalities. He had, we believe, a strong love of English 
justice. He had, we believe, a resolute desire to see things 
established by law. Does any one suppose that had power and 
ambition been his mark, he might not have achieved it in a far 
readier way than by that sophistical and doubtful Protectorate ? 
If the king would have allowed himself to be saved—if, we 
say, he could have been honest—Cromwell would have served 
him and saved him. And had he not prized the happiness of 
his daughter too highly, what was to prevent his acceptance of 
the offer of Charles Stuart, the exile, in which case the name 
of Cromwell might have been associated with the royal line of 
kings ? But we think little of these things. Can we think 
that the man who struck down the majesty of England at 
Marston and Naseby, who laid Ireland groaning at his feet, and 
crushed even the haughty presbytery at Dunbar, can we sup¬ 
pose that any feelings of fear restrained him from decking his 
brows with the round of sovereignty ? That the idea of mon¬ 
archy came to him again and again we can well believe. But 
we can believe also, and do believe, that nothing but the purity 
of his own purposes restrained his hand from grasping the 
crown. Be sure of this, no fantastic republican was he. He 
knew the mind of England too well. He knew human nature 
too well. He knew history too well ; for let us not forget that 
he had received the education of a scholar and a gentleman, 
and scholars admired his magnificent and well-selected library 
in a day when the collection of books was not a fashion. But 
having conquered Charles, he saw, of course, that power and 
responsibility must reside somewhere, and in some person. 
Where ? In that House whom he retained in existence, whose 
greatest spirits were all dead, or, if remaining there, with their 
theories of impracticable governments, framed on Grecian 
models or Italian oligarchies, surrounding their whole concep¬ 
tions with a mist and a haze ? What that Long Parliament 
was fitted to be we see by what it was when he appeared in its 
midst, and by what he did when once more it assembled, and 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 


181 


laid England under so damnable and disgraceful a tyranny that 
every nerve in English flesh thrills with pain and shame when 
we think that our land has known such atrocious and iniquitous 
misrule. Cromwell, we believe, all along used the circum¬ 
stances as they transpired as best he could. What would we 
have had him do ? When the king was conquered, would we 
have had him place the conquered tyrant once more upon the 
throne, without any promise or constitution ? We have seen 
that there was no reliance on his faith ; yet there are those who 
have ever a good word for him. But he could not be true, he 
could not be sincere. “ I wonder you don’t leave off this 
abominable custom of lying, George,” said Lord Muskerry to 
the celebrated George Rooke, when they were sailing together. 
“ I can’t help it,” said George. “ Pooh ! pooh !” said his 
lordship ; “it may be done by degrees. Suppose you were to 
begin by uttering one truth a day !” If Charles had only told 
the truth “ by degrees ,” had he been sincere only now and 
then, he might have been saved ! He signed the death-warrant 
of his best friend and strongest servant, Lord Strafford, after 
he had most faithfully pledged that he would rather lose his 
crown than perform such an act of unfealty, and u on the word 
of a king ” became a proverb and byword from that circum¬ 
stance through all ages. Then came the revelations of the let¬ 
ters seized on the field of Naseby. Then, when the king was 
in the power of the Parliament, Cromwell desired to save him, 
and Cromwell was willing to do so. The king had appealed to 
him, in his despair, from the Isle of Wight ; and the letters, in 
the saddle-bags of the king’s private messenger, to the queen 
in France, seized at the Blue Boar, in Holborn, revealed the 
king as saying of Cromwell, whose hand was graciously, at its 
own peril, attempting to save him, “ He thinks that I may 
confer upon him the Garter and Star , but I shall know, in 
good time, how to fit his neck to a halter /” Even Mrs. 
Hutchinson, no friend to Cromwell, confessed her belief in the 
faithfulness of his desire to save the king, a desire defeated by 
the king’s own unfaithfulness. 


182 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Charles the First disposed of—what then ? Charles Stuart 
the Second, should he place him on the throne ? No ; we 
may well believe this child of light had no fellowship with that 
Belial. The House was composed only of about seventy mem¬ 
bers. They were passing an Act that they would not be dis¬ 
solved but by their own consent. They would by that Act 
have been sitting there now ! Cromwell would not trust that 
weakness. He had also, we believe, no great regard for his 
own head ; still, we dare say, he thought it fitted its own neck 
very well, and he determined to do his best to keep it there. 
On the whole he saw, we believe, that the people must return 
to their ancient monarchy ; but many prejudices and much ill 
blood must die out first. He determined to watch over the 
interests of England like the sentinel of Providence, and he 
called himself the Lord Protector. Well did he deserve the 
name ! 

Well, he has, then, done the deed, call him what you will ; 
he has really ascended the throne. He did, no doubt, that 
which the best spirits of his own day did perceive to be wisest 
and best ; but let no person see in this any inauguration of 
freedom, or homage to complete suffrage ; it was homage to 
power. He took that place by right of the ablest, and we may 
now follow him a few paces into the great acts of his govern¬ 
ment. We have called him the Protector. That word, you 
will perceive, does adequately represent what he was, and what 
he dared to be—the guardian genius of England’s Common¬ 
wealth ; the name as we believe most venerable for his age in 
the annals of civil and religious freedom ; man of widest heart 
and shrewdest eye. 

Some have compared him with Napoleon—Napoleon the 
First—to his disadvantage. But we shall soon see the justice 
of that criticism which finds the greatness of Napoleon rather 
in that he did his work on stilts ; he performed his work in a 
large, ambitious manner, and strode to and fro in self-conscious 
exaggeration before the eyes of Europe. Cromwell performed 
his work on our own island, but he did not leave it. He 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 


1S3 


humbled the proud empires of Europe by a glance. It took 
battles to raise himself to his place of Protector, but he became 
the Dictator of Europe by the magnetism of a great intelli¬ 
gence. From his council-chamber in Whitehall he dictated his 
own terms. Always let it be remembered that Napoleon the 
First, in order to retain his power, directed all the energies of 
his country away from any, even the slightest, attempt at 
domestic reform of his own land, where reforms of every kind 
were so much needed • and he decimated the unhappy people 
of his own land by embroiling them in wars with every nation 
in Europe ; he kindled the conflagrations of martial glory, and 
carried everywhere the banners and eagles of conquest, in order 
that he might dazzle by the fame of his great military dictator¬ 
ship. To our indignant humanity, Napoleon looks like a poor, 
self-exaggerating child, contrasted with the farmer of St. Ives. 
Macaulay well points out how greatly it would have been to 
the interests of Cromwell’s ambition to have plunged his coun¬ 
try into a great European war, and how fertile were the occa¬ 
sions for such a war ! And had he constituted himself the 
armed as he was the peaceful, protector of Protestantism in 
Europe, like another Gustavus Adolphus, how prompt at his 
call for such a cause would have leaped up that mighty army 
of which he was the chief, and which had regarded his voice, 
through so many well-fought fields, as the very voice of the 
Lord of Hosts speaking to men. He had no such ambition ; 
only to serve his country as best he could, and Protestantism 
always, in all peaceful sincerity. 

Cromwell has often been compared, and to his disadvantage, 
with Washington ; in fact, there can be no comparison, the 
two men and their entire careers are all a contrast. How easy, 
how simple the work of the illustrious founder of the United 
States compared with that of the great soldier of the Common¬ 
wealth of England ! Cromwell rises as on a mighty rock, a 
great upheaval from a mob of kings. He rises solitary from 
the sea of Time behind him ; but, again, the sea of old Medie¬ 
valism and Feudalism rises, and rolls around the rock on which 


184 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


he stands solitary and alone. Washington stands high on his 
rock ; but it is like a breakwater, or a peninsula of some great 
continent, and from it there spreads, not the moaning sea 
around it, but there extends from it the road along which 
marches victorious humanity. It is understood that they both 
refused the crown : Cromwell in the council chamber, Wash¬ 
ington in the camp. The witchery of that separation of royalty 
had no power to detain either from the high behests of duty, 
or to delude them to the path in which they might have found 
themselves in treason against the rights of man. Washington 
rose amid the acclamations and love of the United States ; 
Cromwell knew that he only leashed, and held in check the 
gorgons, hydras, and chimeras of persecution, despotism, and 
tyranny. Washington beheld ail conflicting interests combin¬ 
ing in one happy, prosperous nationality ; Cromwell stood 
strong, holding the balances and scales of toleration and justice, 
between a hundred sects, all prepared to fly at each other’s 
throats, and every one of which hated him because he was 
strong. Washington died in peace, and rests in an honored 
grave ; scarcely was Cromwell laid in his tomb when his body 
was torn from the grave, and the fiends, who could not touch 
the living lion, like jackals or hyenas tore the dead body limb 
from limb, and affixed his venerable head over Westminster 
Hall. Widely different was the work of Cromwell from that 
of Washington ; and widely different his heart of passion and 
fire from Washington’s calm, still spirit. Yet Cromwell was, 
as has been most truly said, the greatest human force ever 
directed to a moral purpose, and he seems to look across the 
ocean and even to anticipate Washington. He still rises on 
his rock forecasting coming years. The men, the results of 
whose work are most remote, must wait longest for the reward 
and vintage of their toil. Hence the work of Washington met 
with its immediate reward. He, indeed, laid the foundation 
of a Constitution which should abide secure in the future ; but 
its immediate worth was recognized, he had nothing to do with 
settling the rights of conscience, the claims of distracting opin- 


CROMWELL THE USURPER. 


185 


ions, and the conflicts of Church and State. The space which 
Cromwell filled was so large that only when far removed could 
his greatness he seen ; and to him, perhaps, almost beyond any 
other mortal, most truly applies the often-quoted words of the 
sweet English poet whom Mr. Matthew Arnold is now attempt¬ 
ing to teach the English nation to despise— 

“As some tall clifl that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 

Though round its breast the rolling clouds be spread. 
Eternal sunshine settles on its head !” 


CHAPTER XV. 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 

April, 1653, he dissolved u the Rump !” “We did not 
hear a dog bark at their going,” he said afterward in one of 
his speeches, and it expresses the very truth of the event. 
Henceforth, until 1658—a brief parenthesis of time, indeed, 
in the history of the country—he governed the country abso¬ 
lutely. In a history so brief as this we shall not attempt to 
detail the circumstances of those troublesome years. Alas ! 
all his battles had been easy to win compared with the task of 
ruling the distracted realm. He called “ the little Parlia¬ 
ment,” or the short, as its predecessor had been called “ the 
long.” It had been resolved in a council of the chief officers 
and eminent persons of the realm—but no doubt by Cromwell’s 
own desire—that the Commonwealth should be in a single 
person, that that person should be Cromwell, under the title of 
the Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, to be 
advised and assisted by “ a council of not more than twenty- 
one able, discreet, and godly persons.” His inauguration took 
place on the 16th of December, of that year, in the presence 
of the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal of England, the 

u * 

Barons of the Exchequer, and all the judges in their robes, the 
Council of State, the Lord Mayor, Recorder, and Aldermen of 
the City of London in their scarlet gowns, and the chief officers 
of the army ; a chair of state was set in the midst of the Court 
of Chancery, and on the left side of it stood Cromwell in a 
plain suit of black velvet. An instrument of Government was 
read to him, to which he attached his signature, and in which 
he declared, in the presence of God, that he would not violate 
or infringe the matters and things therein contained, and to 
which he set his name. He then sat down in the chair of 
state, which was while he filled it the strongest throne in 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


187 


Europe ; next day he was proclaimed Protector, by sound of 
trumpet, in the Palace Yard, Westminster, and at the Royal 
Exchange in the City. 

What manner of man was he at this period—fifty-four years 
of age ? See him standing there, before all England, and all 
following ages, a man of some five feet ten or more, of 
massive, stout stature, and large massive head, dignified 
military carriage ; “ of leonine aspect,” says Carlyle, “ a figure 
of sufficient impressiveness, not lovely to the man milliner, nor 
pretending to be so ; an expression of valor and devout intelli¬ 
gence, energy, and delicacy on a basis of simplicity ; wart 
above the right eyebrow, nose of considerable blunt aquiline 
proportions ; strict, yet copious lips, full of all tremulous sensi¬ 
bilities, and also, if need were, of all fierceness and rigors ; 
deep loving eyes—call them grave, call them stern—looking 
from those craggy brows as if in life-long sorrow, and yet not 
thinking it sorrow, thinking it only labor and endeavor.” 
Thus Hampden’s prophecy at last was realized, and “ that 
sloven” had made himself the greatest man in the kingdom.* 

Cromwell called Parliaments from time to time, but they 
gave him no satisfaction, nor the nation either ; the members 
spent their time very much in useless and idle chatter. But, 
again and again, he was urged by the Council and by the Com¬ 
mons to take the Crown : this formed no part of the plan in 
his mind. We have seen that he probably knew that the nation 
would settle itself beneath its ancient monarchy again, and he 
had no ambition to form or found a phantom royal dynasty. 

* Concerning likenesses of Cromwell, it cannot be uninteresting, I 
think, to say that, probably, my excellent friend, the Rev. D. Kewer 
Williams, of Hackney, London (England), has the largest and most 
curious collection of every kind—engravings, paintings, etc., etc.— 
in the world ; in fact, he has a real Cromwellian museum. Let a 
committee be formed for the purchase of these ; let all other possi¬ 
ble obtainable Cromwell memorials be added, and some such monu¬ 
ment reared to the Protector’s memory as that of Robert Burns in 
Edinburgh, as Goethe’s house in Frankfort, as Michael Angelo’s in 
Florence. 


188 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


The following is a very characteristic letter to his son-in-law, 
and seems to admit us, in a very clear manner, into the mind 
of the Protector on this subject : 

u To the Lord Fleetwood , Lord-Deputy of Ireland, 

u Whitehall, 22nd June, 1655. 

u Pear Charles, —I write not often : at once I desire thee 
to know I most dearly love thee ; and, indeed, my heart is 
plain to thee, as thy heart can well desire ; let nothing shake 
thee in this. The wretched jealousies that are among us, and 
the spirit of calumny, turn all into gall and wormwood. My 
heart is for the people of God ; that the Lord knows, and will 
in due time manifest ; yet thence are my wounds ; which 
though it grieves me, yet through the grace of God doth not 
discourage me totally. Many good men are repining at every¬ 
thing ; though indeed very many good are well satisfied, and 
satisfying daily. The will of the Lord will bring forth good in 
due time. 

“ It’s reported that you are to be sent for, and Harry to be 
Deputy ; which, truly, never entered into my heart. The 
Lord knows my desire was for him and his brother to have 
lived private lives in the country ; and Harry knows this very 
well, and how difficultly I was persuaded to give him his com¬ 
mission for his present place. This I say as from a simple and 
sincere heart. The noise of my being crowned , etc ., are similar 
malicious figments. 

“ Dear Charles, my dear love to thee ; and to my dear 
Biddy, who is a joy to my heart, for what I hear of the Lord 
in her. Bid her be cheerful and rejoice in the Lord once and 
again ; if she knows the covenant (of grace), she cannot but 
do so. For that transaction is without her ; sure and stead¬ 
fast, between the Father and the Mediator in His blood. 
Therefore, leaning upon the Son, or looking to Him, thirsting 
after Him, and embracing Him, we are His seed, and the 
covenant is sure to all the seed. The compact is for the seed ; 
God is bound in faithfulness to Christ, and in Him, to us. 



Mrs. Claypole, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, warns him not to take the crown.—Page 188. 


































■ 





> 











CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


189 


The covenant is without us ; a transaction between God and 
Christ. Look up to it. God engageth in it to pardon us ; 
to write His law in our heart ; to plant His fear so that 
we shall never depart from Him. We, under all our sins 
and infirmities, can daily offer a perfect Christ ; and thus 
we have peace and safety, and apprehension of love, from a 
Father in covenant ; who cannot deny Himself. And truly in 
this is all my salvation ; and this helps me to bear my great 
burdens. 

“ If you have a mind to come over with your dear wife, 
take the best opportunity for the good of the public and your 
own convenience. The Lord bless you all. Pray for me, that 
the Lord would direct and keep me, His servant. I bless the 
Lord I am not my own ; but my condition to flesh and blood 
is very hard. Pray for me ; I do for you all. Commend me 
to all friends. 

“ I rest, your loving father, Oliver P. ” 

On the 13th of April, 1657, the Protector delivered his 
eleventh recorded speech, in reply to the reasons which had 
been urged upon him by the House of Commons, and the great 
lawyers, to take upon himself the designation of king : 

“ I undertook the place I am now in, not so much out of 
hope of doing any good, as out of a desire to prevent mischief 
and evil ; which I did see was imminent on the nation. I say, 
we were running headlong into confusion and disorder, and 
would necessarily have run into blood ; and I was passive to 
those that desired me to undertake the place which I now have. 

11 And, therefore, I am not contending for one name compared 
wfith another ; and therefore, have nothing to answer to any 
arguments that were used for preferring the name of kingship 
to protectorship. For I should almost think any name were 
better than my name ; and I should altogether think any 
person fitter than I am for such business ; and I compliment 
not, God knows it. 

“ But this I should say, that I do think you, in the settling 


190 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


of the peace and liberties of this nation, which cries as loud 
upon you as ever nation did for somewhat that may beget a 
consistence, ought to attend to that ; othewise the nation will 
fall in pieces ! And in that, so far as I can, I am ready to 
serve, not as a king, but as a constable, if you like ! For truly 
I have, as before God, often thought that I could not tell what 
my business was, nor what I was in the place where I stood in, 
save comparing myself to a good constable set to keep the 
peace of the parish. 

“ I say, therefore, I do judge for myself there is no such 
necessity of this name of king. 

“ I must say a little ; I think I have somewhat of conscience 
to answer as to the matter, and I shall deal seriously as before 
God. 

“ If you do not all of you, I am sure some of you do, and it 
behoves me to say that I do ‘ know my calling from the first to 
this day.’ I was a person who, from my first employment, 
was suddenly preferred and lifted up from lesser trusts to 
greater ; from my first being a captain of a troop of horse ; 
and did labor as well as I could to discharge my trust ; and 
God blessed me therein as it pleased Him. And I did truly 
and plainly—and in a way of foolish simplicity, as it was 
judged by very great and wise men, and good men too—desire 
to make my instruments help me in that work. I had a very 
worthy friend then ; and he was a very noble person, and I 
know his memory is very grateful to all—Mr. John Hampden. 
At my going out into this engagement [enterprise], I saw our 
men were beaten at every hand. I did indeed ; and desired 
him that he would make some additions to my Lord Essex’s 
army, of some new regiments ; and I told him I would be ser¬ 
viceable to him in bringing such men in as I thought had a 
spirit that would do something in the work. This is very true 
that I tell you ; God knows I lie not. ‘ Your troops,’ said I, 
are most of them old decayed serving men and tapsters, and 
such kind of fellows ; and, said I, ‘ their troops are gentle¬ 
man’s sons, younger sons, and persons of quality ; do you 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


191 


think that the spirits of such base and mean fellows will eve* 
be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honor and courage, 
and resolution in them ? You must get men of spirit ; and 
take it not ill what I say—I know you will not—of a spirit that 
is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go ;—or else you will be 
beaten still. ’ I told him so ; I did truly. He was a wise and 
worthy person ; and he did think that I talked a good notion, 
but an impracticable one. Truly I told him that I could do 
somewhat in it ; I did so, and the result was—impute it to 
what you please—I raised such men as had the fear of God 
before them, as made some conscience of what they did ; and 
from that day forward, I must say to you, they were nevei 
beaten, and wherever they were engaged against the enemy, 
they beat continually. And truly this is matter of praise t<k 
God : and it hath some instruction in it, to own men who are 
religious and godly. And so many of them as are peaceably, 
and honestly, and quietly disposed to live within rules of 
government, and will be subject to those gospel rules of 
obeying magistrates—I reckon no godliness without that 
circle ! Without that the spirit is diabolical—it is devilish— 
it is from diabolical spirits—from the depth of Satan’s wicked¬ 
ness. 

“ I will be bold to apply this (what I said to Mr. Hampden) 
to our present purpose ; because there are still such men in this 
nation ; godly men of the same spirit, men that will not be 
beaten down by a worldly or carnal spirit while they keep their 
integrity. And I deal plainly and faithfully with you, when I 
say : I cannot think that God would bless an undertaking of 
anything (kingships or whatever else) which would, justly and 
with cause, grieve them. I know that very generally good men 
do not swallow this title. It is my duty and my conscience to 
beg of you that there may be no hard things put upon me ; 
things, I mean, hard to them, which they cannot swallow. By 
showing a tenderness even possibly (if it be their weakness) to 
the weakness of those who have integrity, and honesty, and 
uprightness, you will be the better able to root out of this 


192 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


nation all those who think their virtue lies in despising and 
opposing authority.” * 

It sometimes seems to the present writer as if, amid the wild 
scenery of important sectarian jealousy and mad intolerance, 
Cromwell was the only man who had an enlarged sense of true 
freedom. Freedom of conscience, in the sense of most persons 
of that time, appears to have been that they should have the 
right to it themselves, without any claim upon them for its 
exercise toward others ; persecution was not wrong in fact, only 
it was wrong when exercised against themselves. This was 
especially the case with the Presbyterian party of that time ; 
but almost all are involved in the same reprobation ; while we 
write this, upon our table lies the treatise of Thomas Edwards, 
“ A Treatise against Toleration, and Pretended Liberty of 
Conscience,” written for the express purpose of showing that 
toleration is against the whole current, scope, and sense of all 
Scripture, and sets up the polluted, defiled conscience of men 
above the Scriptures, pleading for the power of the magistrate 
to punish heresy, and indeed invoking the severest statutes of 
the old Jewish law, and even statutes yet more severe, as 
applicable to Christian society. No Papist ever went farther 
than this writer, and many others of his time, in his attempt to 
develop a perfect science of persecution. The same doctrines 
are unfolded at greater length in his “ Gangrena,” of which 
the following passage is a fair sample and illustration : 

“ A Toleration is the grand design of the devil—his master¬ 
piece, and chief engine he has at this time, to uphold his 
tottering kingdom. It is the most compendious, ready, sure 
way to destroy all religion, lay all waste, and bring in all evil. 
It is a most transcendent, catholic, and fundamental evil for 
this kingdom of any that can be imagined. As original sin is 
the most fundamental sin, having the seed and spawn of all in 

* The reader will remember that some of the above sentences were 
quoted in the chapter on “Cromwell and his Ironsides but in the 
connection in which they now stand, it can scarcely be regarded as 
superfluous that they are quoted again. 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


193 


it ; so a toleration hath all errors in it, and all evils. It is 
against the whole stream and current of Scripture both in the 
Old and New Testament ; both in matters of faith and man¬ 
ners ; both general and particular commands. It overthrows 
all relations, political, ecclesiastical, and economical. And 
whereas other evils, whether of judgment or practice, be but 
against some one or two places of Scripture, or relation, this is 
against all—this is the Abaddon, Apollyon, the destroyer of all 
religion, the abomination of all desolation and astonishment, 
the liberty of perdition, and therefore the devil follows it night 
and day ; working mightily in many by writing books for it, 
and other ways ;—all the devils in hell, and their instruments', 
being at work to promote a toleration.” 

This is exceedingly pleasant and comfortable writing ! and 
it may give some idea of the spirit which was abroad in that 
time, and which the Lord Protector felt himself raised up reso¬ 
lutely to hold in check. The Fifth Monarchy men constituted 
another amiable section, with Rogers at their head—an amazing 
nuisance in the nation ; indeed, a catalogue of the rival sects in 
Cromwell’s army would be an astonishing compilation. 

Cromwell’s whole ideas of religious liberty rose and ranged 
far beyond those of most of the men of his age. How impres¬ 
sively this comes out in his correspondence with the Scotch 
Commissioners and Presbyterian clergymen after the battle of 
Dunbar. “You say,” he writes, “that you have just cause 
to regret that men of civil employments should usurp the call¬ 
ing and employment of the ministry to the scandal of the 
Reformed Kirks. Are you troubled that Christ is preached ? 
Is preaching so exclusively your function ? I thought the Cove¬ 
nant and these professors of it ’ could have been willing that 
any should speak good of the name of Christ ; if not, it is no 
covenant of God’s approving ; nor are these Kirks you mention 
in so much the spouse of Christ. Where do you find in the 
Scripture a ground to warrant such an assertion that preaching 
is exclusively your function ? Though an approbation from 
men hath order in it, and may do well, yet he that hath no 


194 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


better warrant than that hath none at all. I hope He that 
ascended up on high may give His gifts to whom He pleases ; 
and if those gifts be the seal of mission, be not you envious 
though Eldad and Medad prophecy. You know who bids us 
‘ covet earnestly the best gifts , but chiefly that we may 
prophesy ; ’ which the apostle explains there to be a speaking 
to instruction, and edification, and comfort ; which speaking, 
the instructed, the edified, and comforted can best tell the 
energy and effect of. Your pretended fear lest error should 
step in will be found to be an unjust and unwise jealousy to 
deprive a man of his natural liberty, upon a supposition he may 
abuse it. When he doth abuse it, judge. If a man speak 
foolishly, yet suffer him gladly because ye are wise ; if errone¬ 
ously, the truth more appears by your conviction of him. 
Stop such a man’s mouth by sound words which cannot be 
gainsaid. If we speak blasphemously, or to the disturbance of 
the public peace, let the civil magistrate punish him ; if truly, 
rejoice in the truth. The ministers in England are supported, 
and have liberty to preach the Gospel ; though not to rail, nor 
under pretence thereof, to overtop the civil power or abuse it 
as they please. No man hath been troubled in England or in 
Ireland for preaching the Gospel ; nor has any minister been 
molested in Scotland since the coming of the army hither. 
Then speaking truth becomes the ministers of Christ.” These 
last words are in reply to a charge made by the Scotch Com¬ 
missioners that Cromwell had prevented the holding of relig¬ 
ious services, and the charge very singularly occurs in reply to 
Cromwell’s warrant in which immediately after the battle of 
Dunbar he says, by his secretary Edward Whalley, “ I have 
received command from my Lord-General to desire you to let 
the ministers of Edinburgh, now in the Castle, know that they 
have your liberty granted them, if they please to take the 
pains to preach in their several churches, and that my lord hath 
given special command both to officers and soldiers, that they 
shall not in the least be molested.” But such liberty as this, 
as our readers will know, did not satisfy the Presbyterian mind 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


195 


of that day, which demanded not only the right to the expres¬ 
sion of their own convictions, hut also the repression of all who 
followed not with them. Did not Milton say of them that, 
“ Presbyter was priest spelt large.” Indeed, in that day there 
was a universal disposition to persecute and repress ; it was not 
that persecution, in itself, was judged a crime, only when it 
assailed the order of particular opinion. Toleration was 
regarded by Episcopalian and Presbyterian as an abominable 
Erastianism, or latitudinarian and Laodicean half-heartedness ; 
and Oliver alone stood forth vindicating liberty of conscience 
to all. 

In his fifth recorded speech, delivered on the 17th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1656, we find him expressing his opinion strongly as 
to the maintenance of religious liberty, and the equality of all : 

“ I will tell you the truth : our practice since the last Par¬ 
liament hath been to let all this nation see that whatever pre¬ 
tensions to religion would continue quiet, peaceable, they 
should enjoy conscience and liberty to themselves ; and not to 
make religion a pretence for arms and blood. All that tends 
to combination, to interests and factions, we shall not care by 
the Grace of God, whom we meet withal, though never so 
specious, if they be not quiet ! And truly I am against all 
liberty of conscience repugnant to this. If men will profess— 
be they those under baptism, be they those of the Independent 
judgment simply, or of the Presbyterian judgment—in the 
name of God, encourage them so long as they do plainly con¬ 
tinue to be thankful to God, and to make use of the liberty 
given them to enjoy their own consciences ! For as it was 
said to-day [in Dr. Owen’s sermon before Parliament], un¬ 
doubtedly ‘ this is the peculiar interest all this while contended 
for.’ 

“ Men who believe in Jesus Christ, and walk in a profession 
answerable to that Faith ; men who believe in the remission of 
sins through the blood of Christ, and free justification by the 
blood of Christ ; who live upon the grace of God—are members 
of Jesus Christ, and are to Him the apple of His eye. Who- 


196 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ever has this Faith , let his form be what it will ; he walking 
peaceably without prejudice to others under other forms—it is 
a debt due to God and Christ ; and He' will require it, if that 
Christian may not enjoy his liberty. 

“ If a man of one form will be trampling upon the heels of 
another form ; if an Independent, for example, will despise 
him who is under baptism, and will revile him, and reproach 
him and provoke him—I will not suffer it in him. 

God gave us hearts and spirits to keep things equal. Which, 
truly I must profess to you hath been my temper. I have had 
some boxes on the ear, and rebukes—on the one hand and on 
the other. I have borne my reproach ; but I have, through 
God’s mercy, not been unhappy in hindering any one religion 
to improve upon another.” 

He was constantly under the necessity of so watching over 
the sacred rights of religious liberty, that as we know he some¬ 
times had to interpose his authority to protect and guard ; so 
again he had to interpose his severe condemnation against 
words and measures which appeared to him to be fatal to the 
rights of conscience. It is thus we find him speaking on the 
22d of January, 1655, when he summoned the House to meet 
him in the Painted Chamber : “Is there not yet upon the 
spirits of men a strange itching ? Nothing will satisfy them 
unless they can press their finger upon their brethren’s con¬ 
sciences, to pinch them there. To do this was no part of the 
contest we had with the common adversary. And wherein 
consisted this more than in obtaining that liberty from the 
tyranny of the bishops to all species of Protestants to worship 
God according to their own light and consciences ? For want 
of which many of our brethren forsook their native countries 
to seek their bread from strangers, and to live in howling wil¬ 
dernesses ; and for which also many that remained here were 
imprisoned, and otherwise abused and made the scorn of the 
nation. Those that were sound in the Faith, how proper was 
it for them to labor for liberty, for a just liberty, that men 
might not be trampled upon for their consciences ! Had not 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


197 


they themselves labored, but lately, under the weight of perse¬ 
cution ? And was it lit for them to sit heavy upon others ? Is 
it ingenuous to ask liberty, and not give it ? . . . What 

greater hypocrisy than for those who were oppressed by the 
bishops to become the greatest oppressors themselves, so soon 
as their yoke was removed ? I could wish that they who call 
for liberty now also had not too much of that spirit, if the 
power were in their hands ! As for profane persons, blas¬ 
phemous, such as preach sedition ; the contentious railers, evil- 
speakers, who seek by evil words to corrupt good manners, 
persons of loose conversation—punishment from the civil mag¬ 
istrate ought to meet with these. ’ ’ 

But we must give a few swift glances into the inner life of 
this great heart—the domestic life. He has been assailed here 
too. We love to look at Cromwell after the hard, scarred face 
and the strong mailed hand have revealed themselves. We 
love to think of him as husband, father, grandfather, and 
master of a family. “ His letters reveal all,” says Eliot War- 
burton, when he mentions the discovery of the letters of 
Charles I., after Naseby, and the perfidy they revealed, trans¬ 
forming ever after the phrase, “ On the word of a king,” into 
the synonym of a lie. “ And,” says that lively and prejudiced 
writer (we have quoted this expression already), “ if all the 
letters of the dark Cromwell’ could have been opened, what 
would they have revealed ?” Well, they all have been discov¬ 
ered, all have been opened ; and we suppose never, in the 
history of man, has there been presented such a transparent 
wholeness. It is one mirror of simple nobleness : every little 
note, and every family epistle, and every letter to the state 
officers, all reveal the same man. “ A single eye, and a whole 
body full of light.” Of course, in his letters as in his 
speeches, he says no more than he has to say ; he never labors 
for any expression. He is not a man who can use a flowing 
imaginative diction. His words are strong, stiff, unbendable 
beings, but they convey a meaning and speak out a full, deter¬ 
mined heart. 


198 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


The great crime which has been charged upon Cromwell in 
his household, is that it was too Puritanical ; that is, that it 
was a consistent, religious home. Let “ Lord Will-be-will ” 
say what he will, Cromwell knew nothing of those temporizing 
policies by which, in the present day, we argue that great place 
must accommodate itself to the world and to the world’s ways. 
We have pictures given to us of his household. Upon the 
occasion of the signing of the treaty of peace with Holland, the 
ambassador gives an account of his reception at the Protector’s 
Court. How calm and quiet and dignified the account of that 
reception ! Music, indeed, was playing while they were 
dining, but after that the Protector gave out a hymn ; and as 
he handed the book to the ambassador, he told him “ that was 
the best paper that had passed between them as yet. ’ ’ Digni¬ 
fied and beautiful is the account of the gentle behavior of the 
Protector to the wife and daughter of the ambassador. Then, 
after a walk on the banks of the river for half an hour, the 
prayers in the family ; and so the evening closed—very much, 
indeed, such a simple evening as we and our friends might 
spend together. 

Of course Cromwell’s was a Puritan household—a household 
not so unpleasant for the imagination to linger upon as some 
may think. The life of the Puritan home reveals the Church 
life of the period : even the air was laden with mysticism, a 
floating mysticism pervaded almost the whole theology of the 
time : and a mystic can never be a very merry man. The 
recreations of Puritan homes were reduced to the narrowest 
compass compatible with good sense and taste. Wakes were 
abolished, maypoles pulled down and cockfights and bear bait¬ 
ings brought to an end. Meantime, the Puritan was not desti¬ 
tute of recreation : there were nice flower gardens for the’ 
ladies, and brave field sports for the gentlemen ; but the daily 
life of the Puritan was brought within a compass which, while 
it did not prohibit the joke and the merry laugh, must, we 
fancy, have often and usually shaded down life to a sternness 
and habitual severity very much in harmony, it may be, with 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


199 


the seriousness of the times, but not reflecting that cheerfulness 
which a wiser and wider view of God and truth and nature 
would create and permit. 

Cromwell well knew what of ceremony to abate, and what to 
retain. “ Ceremony keeps up all things,” said John Selden. 
We can see through it. True ; so we can see through the 

glass, “ the penny glass which holds some rich essence, or 

refined water ; but without the frail glass, the essence, the real 
value, would be lost.” We may have too little ceremony as 
well as too much. It does not matter much, but we do rather 
like our servant to tap at our study door before coming in, 

although we do not care about her handing our letters on a 

silver salver. When ambassadors crowded Cromwell’s Court 
from all the States of Europe, some of them, in deference to 
the usualties of royalty, desired to kiss his hand 5 but, with 
manly dignity, he retired back two or three steps higher, to his 
throne, bowed to the deputation, and so closed the audience. 
A man, we see, w r ho will not bate an inch of his nation s 
dignity, nor wear more than his manhood for his own. As he 
would not adopt the designation, so he would not permit him¬ 
self to play at being a king. 

Shall we say how he defended learning and scholarship ? 
He had a wonderfully omniscient eye for the discovery of 
great men ; not merely great generals or great statesmen, but 
for every kind of learning and scholarship. We know that 
his two secretaries were John Milton and Andrew Marvel. 
We know that he sought the friendship of Baxter. When he 
first met with Dr. Owen, he said, “ Sir, you are the person I 
must be acquainted with, ’ ’ and took him by the hand and led 
him into the garden. And after a long conversation with John 
Ilowe, nothing would satisfy him but that seraphic man must 
become his chaplain. How graciously and kindly he listened 
to George Fox also, when he spoke, and desired to see and to 
talk with him again. He surrounded his house and table with 
the holiest and most scholarly men ef his time. He committed 
the University of Oxford to Qwen. We know what it was 


200 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


when he went there. We know that scholarship was expelled ; 
that it was the haunt of Comus and his crew ; and we know 
what he made it. It is to his immortal honor that the Biblia 
Polyglotta Waltoni, perhaps the most valuable and important 
biblical book ever issued from the British press, owed the 
existence of its gigantic volumes to Cromwell. It was a most 
precious compendium of Scriptural criticism and interpretation. 
Everything of that time, previously attempted, had been per¬ 
formed for the Catholic Church, and at the expense of Catholic 
princes. No Protestant prince had even been able to under¬ 
take such a work. Dr. Owen at first opposed it, looking upon 
it with suspicion. It is very characteristic that Cromwell, 
respecting Owen as he did, encouraged it, assisted in defraying 
the expense of publishing it, and admitted five thousand reams 
of paper free of duty, and so saved the author from loss by its 
publication. It was published during the Protectorate, and 
dedicated to Cromwell. But its mean and dastardly compiler, 
upon the return of Charles Stuart, erased the dedication to the 
man who had so substantially aided him, and inserted that of 
the king, who cared neither for the project, its scholarship, nor 
the Bible. He delighted to gather round him great minds. 
John Milton was his familiar friend and Latin or Foreign Secre- 
tary ; he encouraged the young genius of honest Andrew 
Marvell, the patriot and the poet ; Ilartlib, a native of Poland, 
the bosom friend of Milton, and one of the foremost advocates 
of a wise education, was honored and pensioned by him ; he 
was the steadfast friend, notwithstanding episcopacy, of Arch¬ 
bishop Usher ; and far removed as his own sentiments were 
from Universalism, he shielded from persecution John Biddle, 
called the Father of Unitarians, and in consideration of his 
worth, even granted him a pension of one hundred crowns a 
year. Even Sir Kenelm Digby, Royalist as he was found 
himself at the Protector’s table, who no doubt enjoyed the 
mystical wanderings of his mind, and certainly did honor to his 
literary merits. He invited to his table, sometimes, men dis¬ 
affected to himself—notably more than once he invited several 


CROMWELL THE PROTECTOR. 


201 


of the nobility, and after dinner told them, to their surprise, 
where they had lately been, what company they had lately 
kept, and advised them the next time they drank the health of 
Charles Stuart and the memebrs of the royal family, to do it a 
little more secretly, as the knowledge might not be so safe with 
some as with him. Such things as these might be mentioned 
to the too great extension of this chapter, but from every 
aspect it seems the character of a reverent and faithful man 
shines out upon us. In one of his speeches, he says, “ I have 
lived the latter part of my life in, if I may say so, the fire, in 
the midst of troubles ; but, truly, my comfort in all my life hath 
been that the burdens which have lain heavy on me were laid 
on me by the hand of God.” It is often said, a man can only 
do a man’s work ; but, as the man’s work was very great, so 
was the man great who was set to perform it, and of him that 
is especially true which the poet Browning has so well taught 
in that which is, perhaps, his greatest poem, “ Sordello,” that 
“ Ends accomplished, turn to means.” 

To live is indeed to strive, but the chief idea of life is not 
always realized in the sense of the mere realist ; his sense of 
the thing done is limited by that which stands present, com¬ 
plete, and accomplished to the eye ; to him, therefore, all fail¬ 
ure or incompleteness is baffled or foiled existence. But the 
great poet, to whom we have referred, teaches us that it is not 
so. There is a world of work which is out of sight, which has 
told upon, and borne along, the individual soul, and it may be 
the soul of the age or ages, along with it; and hence at the 
close of Cromwell’s day, or life, as with Sordello, so it may be 

yet more truly said of him— 

** The real way seemed made up of all the ways, 

Mood after mood of the one mind in him ; 

Tokens of the existence, bright or dim, 

Of a transcendent and all-bracing sense, 

Demanding only outward influence : 

A soul above his soul, 

Power to uplift his power, this moon’s control 
Over the sea depths.’ ’ 


CHAPTER XVI. 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 

Referring to the foreign policy of Cromwell, the wisdom 
of which several wise little critics have chosen to call in ques¬ 
tion, it will be in the memory of our readers how he once said, 
“ He hoped he should make the name of an Englishman as 
great as ever that of a Roman had been.” It is not too much 
to say that England had never before so overawed the nations 
of Europe as during the reign of Cromwell. Perhaps some 
readers will say, What right has any nation, or any man, to 
overawe other nations or other princes ? This is very plausi¬ 
ble, but in Cromwell’s case it does not correctly state the mat¬ 
ter. It should be remembered that in that age, in Cromwell’s 
time, the strong nations of Europe were set upon crushing the 
principles of freedom as represented by Protestant principles 
and in Protestant states. France and Spain were almost equally 
obnoxious to freedom, but in those days Spain was incompara¬ 
bly the strongest power ; true, her power was on the wane, but 
she had the traditional inheritance of amazing empire, and she 
had the actual possession of the greatest and most wealthy 
colonies. The cruelty of her intolerance to Protestantism, and 
to all civil and religious liberty, had been written literally in 
letters of fire and blood, in the stakes and tortures of the 
Inquisition, in the more than decimation, the destruction, of 
towns and villages ; nor was it so long since that the huge 
Armada was floated against England in the name of all papistry 
and despotism. All Cromwell’s conduct shows the good will 
he had to, and the sympathy he had with, the Netherlands. 
It is quite likely that France and her statesmen were by no 
means charming to him ; but he judged Spain to be as more 
worthy of his sword in virtue of her own more equal power, so 
also more deserving of his vengeance as the oppressor of the 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 203 


saints of the Lord, and the cruel foe to every form of freedom. 
One of the great instruments he chose to this end is one of 
the most illustrious names in the annals of the English navy, 
Robert Blake, Admiral Blake. What a splendid halo of 
chivalric memories gathers round the name of that great com¬ 
mander ! there is scarcely another name in our nautical annals 
so fresh, so full of all the romance and poetry of the sea. One 
of the greatest of Cromwell’s contemporaries, we must devote 
a page to the story of the life of the man who did as much as 
any of his time to make England respected and feared by her 
hereditary foes. 

Robert Blake was born at Bridgewater, the son of a respect¬ 
able Somersetshire merchant. We believe the old house is still 
standing, and shown, where he first drew breath ; its gardens 
run to the river, and its windows look out on the Quantock 
Hills. Moreover, his young eyes early became familiar with 
the masts of the vessels of many nations, suggesting visions of 
the distant purple seas and recently discovered isles. He came 
of a Puritan stock ; he received a university education, and is 
said to have gone farther in the knowledge of classics and 
books than has usually fallen to the lot of the sons of the sea. 
Blake in his early life appears to have been a thorough Puritan, 
and also very much of a Republican. He was returned mem¬ 
ber for Bridgewater to what is called the Short Parliament, 
which met on Monday, the 13th of April, 1640 ; and he no 
doubt heard the pleasant words with which the Lord Keeper 
Finch opened that Parliament : “ His Majesty’s kingly resolu¬ 
tions are seated in the ark of his sacred breast, and it were a 
presumption of too high a nature for any Jjzzah uncalled to 
touch it : yet His Majesty is now pleased to lay by the shining 
beams of majesty, as Phoebus did to Phaeton, that the distance 
between sovereignty and subjection should not bar you of that 
filial freedom of access to his person and counsels.” But the 
time had come when this style of language was no longer to be 
endured by the Commons, and so they determined, before they 
would give to the king any supplies, they would seek the 


204 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


redress of many grievances. The astonished king dissolved 
this Parliament in little more than a fortnight, and then in the 
same year assembled the Long Parliament, of which, however, 
Blake was not returned member until 1645, when he took his 
seat for Taunton, and then when the war broke out, and the 
king raised his standard at Nottingham, while Cromwell mar¬ 
shalled his Ironsides in Huntingdonshire, Blake hurried down 
to the Western counties, and with celerity raised a troop of 
dragoons, with which he dashed to and fro, and did good 
service to the cause of the Parliament in the West. He soon 
rose high in the esteem of those for whom he was acting ; he 
was appointed colonel, and also one of the Committee of Ways 
and Means for Somerset. To those who have only known 
Blake as one of our great English sea-kings, it seems singular 
to think of him as a commander on the field. His conflicts 
seem to have been in the West with Prince Maurice, Prince 
Rupert’s brother. He forced his way into his native town of 
Bridgewater, and a pathetic story tells how there he lost his 
brother, Samuel Blake, in a skirmish. He defended the little 
seaport town of Lyme besieged by Maurice, and he compelled 
the Prince to give up the siege after the loss of 2000 men. 
He attempted to force Plymouth ; and he did relieve Taunton 
when a sudden attack had been made upon that town, the 
refuge of a multitude of Puritans of that region. The whole 
region round Taunton appears to have been devastated and 
desolated by Goring’s ferocious troops, generally called 
“ Goring’s crew. ” Blake summarily scattered these Royalist 
ruffians, for which he received the thanks of Parliament and a 
special vote of £500. It was indeed a great triumph. This 
was not long before the battle of Naseby ; then the king’s 
game was up, and Blake appears for a short time to have 
retreated into the quietude of private life. 

Blake was a man who had no disposition to take upon him¬ 
self the management or direction of the complications of State. 
He was a moderate man, heartily anti-royalist, but with no 
wish to see the king beheaded. All the accounts that we have 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 205 

of him set him before ns in a pleasant and beautiful light. He 
•was a Puritan, but not morose ; a cheerful country gentleman, 
orderly and pious, ready with good and holy words when such 
were needed in his household, but fond of a hearty laugh, a 
cup of sack, and a pipe of tobacco ; a straightforward man, 
who very likely despised all high-flying notions, and only 
wished to see Government settled in such a manner as should 
have been for the good of all. Just the sort of man, says one 
writer, in commenting upon him, as would have ordered 
Maximilien Robespierre into the stocks, had he made his 
appearance talking any of his fine-spun orations, in his sky-blae 
coat, in the good old town of Taunton. 

Such was Robert Blake, when, at fifty years of age, he was 
called forth to an entirely new world of work, and from a gen¬ 
eral on the field to tread the deck as an admiral on the seas. 
Excellent as the service was which he had rendered as a soldier, 
we should scarcely have heard his name but that he added to 
all that had gone before the renown of a sailor whose name 
shines as an equal by the side of Drake, Nelson, Collingwood, 
and Hood ; and yet how strange it seems that he should rise to 
the rank of a first-rate English seaman after his fiftieth year ! 
strange that he should have been equal to such victorious 
fights !—and yet, probably, in our day he would not have 
passed either a civil or an uncivil service examination. 

It has been the fashion with some writers to assert that 
Cromwell and Blake were hostile to each other. It is perfectly 
certain that the reverse was quite the case, Blake and Cromwell 
were friends ; we read of the great pair dining together at 
Cromwell’s house after he became Protector. The pursuits of 
the two men were different : Blake did not trouble himself 
with governing troublesome people, his work lay in fighting 
England’s enemies and maintaining England’s honor on the 
seas. First we find him in conflict again with an old land foe, 
Prince Rupert, who had also betaken himself to the waters. 
Blake followed him to the Tagus, trailing after him the Com¬ 
monwealth’s men-of-war with their homely names of the Tiger, 


206 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the Tenth Whelp, John, Signet ; homely vessels no doubt, but 
they succeeded in scattering Rupert’s vessels with their finer 
names, and the Prince, with the fragments of his fleet, hurried 
away to the West Indies. Blake appears to have soon found 
himself as much at home inside the oak bulwarks, the black 
rigging, and the maze of masts, as behind the trenches or at 
the head of dragoons. He acquitted himself so well that the 
Council of State, after this his first expedition, made him 
Warden of the Cinque Ports. Blake became a naval reformer : 
he brought it about that his men were better paid, and received 
a more equitable distribution of prize-money ; also he appears 
to have fought for and obtained better diet for his men, good 
provisions instead of the too often rank and foul food pro¬ 
vided for them. It was beneath Blake’s pennon that England 
first asserted the supremacy of the seas, a supremacy which she 
had soon to lower when Cromwell’s pleasant successor ascended 
the English throne. We are not telling the story of Blake, 
and it is not therefore necessary that we should dwell upon the 
conflict with Holland and the Netherlands, represented by 
Blake and Van Tromp ; and when at first, off the Ness, in 
Essex, Blake was worsted, Van Tromp proclaimed himself 
master of the Channel, and passed the English coast in triumph 
with a broom at the masthead. Blake, as we know, called 
for inquiry from the State into the conduct of several of his 
captains, and with a fleet which was afterward fitted out, he 
quite retrieved the English navy from its momentary disgrace, 
and added immensely to his country’s glory and fame. This 
was the occasion on which the old tradition says that Blake 
mounted a horsewhip as his standard, as he swept the Channel, 
in humorous response to Van Tromp’s standard of the broom. 
But it is farther away from home we have to follow him, to 
track the splendor of his great achievements. Throughout the 
Papal States and along the coasts of the Mediterranean, the 
people trembled at the name of the heretic Admiral and his 
line of conquering ships. At Leghorn he demanded and 
obtained compensation in monev for the owners of vessels that 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 207 

had been sold there by the Princes Rupert and Maurice ; then 
he demanded and received compensation from the Pope, Alex¬ 
ander VII., for vessels sold by the same princes in Roman 
ports ; he received on board his sixty-gun ship, the George, 
20,000 pistoles, which his demands had produced from the 
Holy See. He urged freedom of worship for Protestants on 
the Grand Duke of Tuscany ; then sailed away to the coast of 
Africa to have a word with the Bey of Tunis. From him he 
demanded compensation for prizes taken from the English. 
The Bey refused ; Blake retired, put all his vessels in order, 
returned, cannonaded all the forts, and set fire to the corsair 
ships. Then away he sailed for Tripoli, where he found his 
fame had preceded him ; the Bey there was manageable ; and 
when, after this, he called in at Tunis again, he found the Bey 
of Tunis so renewed in the spirit of his mind that he was glad 
to conclude a treaty of peace to save himself from further 
molestation. In the midst of all these arduous conquests he 
was tired and ill, and he writes affectingly to the Protector, 
describing some trials his brave sailors had to bear, and lightly 
referring to his own sufferings : “ Our only comfort is that we 
have a God to lean upon, although we walk in darkness, and 
see no light. I shall not trouble Your Highness with any com¬ 
plaints of myself, of the indisposition of my body, or troubles 
of my mind ; my many infirmities will one day, I doubt not, 
sufficiently plead for me, or against me, so that I may be free 
of so great a burden, consoling myself in the mean time in the 
Lord, and in the firm purpose of my heart, with all faithfulness 
and sincerity, to discharge the trust reposed in me.” 

Soon after this he ran home to refit and to be in more 
thorough readiness for the great silver fleets which were crossing 
the Atlantic from the Spanish colonies. And now followed, 
when he again set sail, his most remarkable triumphs. It was 
against those splendid Spanish galleons and India-built mer¬ 
chantmen, their holds full of the choicest products of the far 
West, gold and silver, pearls and precious stones, hides, 
indigo, cochineal, sugar, and tobacco, that he and his men set 


208 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


forth ; and abundant were the treasures of sparkling silver- 
pieces which fell into the horny hands of Blake’s men. He 
made his first seizure on this venture and sent it home ; the 
bullion was conveyed to London, under the charge of soldiers, 
and eight-and-thirty wagon-loads of silver reeled along through 
the streets of London to the Tower, amid the cheerful applause 
of the multitude. Blake did not come home : he was still out 
on those distant seas waiting for, and ready to pounce upon, 
more prizes. Perhaps many of our readers will think it a diffi¬ 
cult thing to conceive of this w r arlike sailor as a God-fearing 
man, following up all this mischief against the Spaniards in 
the fear of the Lord ; but it was even so, not an oath was heard 
on board his vessel or vessels, the ordinances of religion were 
followed up punctiliously. Why not ? he was fighting the 
cause of freedom and faith against popery and absolutism, and 
their persecutions ; and, whereas Spain and Rome had made 
Protestants everywhere tremble, this Gustavus of the seas, in 
turn, made Spain and Rome to tremble, and perhaps stirred 
some new thoughts about Protestant heroism within their cruel 
souls. He appears to have seen plainly the sphere in which he 
had to play his part : “ It is not for us,” said he, “ to mind 
State affairs, but to keep the foreigners from fooling us,” and 
his name became as terrible to the foes of England on the sea 
as Cromwell’s on the land. Numerous and rapid were his vic¬ 
tories over Holland, and Spain, and Portugal. It is melan¬ 
choly to linger over the achievements of warriors ; but it is 
certainly a source of pride and triumph to feel how the 
victories of Blake contributed to the peace of the world. He 
swept the Mediterranean clear of pirates, and enabled the com¬ 
merce of Europe and the world to perform its work in that day 
in silence and quiet and respect. The Beys of Tunis, Algiers, 
and Tripoli were startled from the slumber of their despotism, 
as the noise of Blake’s triumphant career rolled on their ears ; 
and great must have been the astonishment of England, and 
especially that part of England contained in the cities of Lon¬ 
don and Westminster, to behold again the thirty-eight wagon- 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 209 


loads of silver rumbling over the stones of the old city, all 
taken by Blake from the king of Spain at Santa Cruz, amid 
whirlwinds of fire and iron hail,” beneath the old Peak of 
Teneriffe. He had, before that, compelled the Dutch to do 
homage to England, as the Mistress of the Seas, defeating Van 
Tromp and De Ruyter. The Protector sent to him, after his 
last victory, a jewelled ring of the value of £500, and great 
would have been the acclamation greeting him on his return to 
his native land. But it was not decreed that he should stand 
upon her shores again. He returned homeward, and coveted 
a sight of old England’s shores once more, and once more he 
beheld them—and that was all. He expired as his fleet was 
entering Plymouth Sound, on the 27th of August, 1657. A 
true model of a British sailor—he died poor. After all his 
triumphs and opportunities of accumulating wealth, he was not 
worth £500 ! A magnificent public funeral, and a resting- 
place in Henry VII.’s chapel was decreed for him ; and there 
were few in the country who did not feel that his strength had 
been a mighty bulwark to the land. But when Charles II. 
returned to the country, the purely national glory which sur¬ 
rounded the memory of this great English hero did not exempt 
his body from the indecent and inhuman indignities which were 
heaped upon the remains of the great Republicans. By the 
king’s command the remains of this, perhaps the greatest Eng¬ 
lish Admiral that ever walked a deck, were torn from the tomb 
and cast into a pit in St. Margaret’s churchyard. “ There,” 
says Wood, “ it lies, enjoying no other monument than what 
is reared by his own valor, which time itself can hardly 
deface.” But even Lord Clarendon cannot forbear a slight 
tribute to his memory ; he says of Blake : “ Despising those 
rules which had been long in practice, to keep his ships and 
men out of danger, as if the principal art requisite in a naval 
captain had been to come safe home again, he was the first who 
brought ships to contemn castles on shore, which had ever 
before been thought formidable, and taught his men to fight in 
fire as well as upon water and, adds his lordship, “ though 


210 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


he has been very well imitated and followed, he was the first 
that gave the example of that kind of naval courage, and bold 
and resolute achievements. ’ ’ 

But from Blake we return to Cromwell, and rightly to 
estimate his power our readers must remember that at that time 
England had never been more than a third-rate power in 
Europe ; and the other nations were in the height and heat of 
their grandeur and fame. Spain, with a population of about 
thirty millions—it had declined recently, in the time of 
Charles V. its population had been about thirty-six millions, 
and the population of England at this time could not have been 
six millions—was the kingdom of the Inquisition, the chief 
land of the Romish power ; with her continents of golden isles 
in the west, her possessions of gold in her own country ; 
haughty, defiant, and strong. Spain, Cromwell determined to 
crush. France was powerful. Only recently had she known 
the monarchy of Henry of Navarre and the statesmanship of 
Richelieu. Her destinies were now guided by the wiliest man 
and most fox-like statesman in Europe, Cardinal Mazarin. 
Him Cromwell treated as a valet or a footman ; and his power 
lay humbled and stricken before the genius of the bluff farmer- 
statesman. Our readers may talk, if they will, about the craft 
and cunning of Cromwell, but his letters to Mazarin flow like 
transparent waves before the inky turbidity of that cuttlefish, 
that Sepia among statesmen. A dry humor, nay, sometimes a 
most droll humor, guides his dealings with him. Mazarin was, 
we know, a most miserable miser, a kind of griffon in thread¬ 
bare wings, watching his heaps and cellars of gold. How well 
Cromwell knew him. He sent presents to Cromwell, we find— 
the richest and the stateliest presents of hangings and pictures 
and jewels. Whereupon Cromwell came out generously too, 
and sent the Frenchman what he knew, to his market eye, 
would be of more value than hangings, pictures, or books ; he 
sent him some tons of British tin I Was it not characteristic 
of the shrewdness of the man ? The supple Mazarin neve* 
found himself so perplexed. 


FOREIGN POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 211 


Did our readers ever read the anecdote of Cromwell and the 
Quaker ? It occurs in a speech, made in the House of Com¬ 
mons in the early part of the eighteenth century, by Mr. Pul- 
teney, in a debate on the complaints of the West Indian mer¬ 
chants against Spain ; and certainly it showed no ordinary 
bravery to introduce the example of Cromwell to the notice of 
kings and ministers in those days. 

“ This was what Oliver Cromwell did,” said the speaker, 

“ in a like case, that happened during his government, and in 
a case where a more powerful nation was concerned than ever 
Spain could pretend to be. In the histories of his time we are ' 
told that an English merchant ship was taken in the chops of 
the Channel, carried into St. Malo, and there confiscated upon 
some groundless pretence. As soon as the master of the ship, 
who was an honest Quaker, got home, he presented a petition 
to the Protector in Council, setting forth his case, and praying 
for redress. Upon hearing the petition, the Protector told his 
Council he would take that affair upon himself, and ordered 
the man to attend him next morning. He examined him 
strictly as to all the circumstances of his case, and finding by 
his answers that he was a plain, honest man, and that he had 
been concerned in no unlawful trade, he asked him if he could 
go to Paris with a letter ? The man answered he could. 

‘ Well, then,’ says the Protector, ‘ prepare for your journey, 
and come to me to-morrow morning. ’ Next morning he gave 
him a letter to Cardinal Mazarin, and told him he must stay 
but three days for an answer. ‘ The answer I mean, ’ says he, 

‘ is the full value of what you might have made of your ship 
and cargo ; and tell the Cardinal, that if it is not paid you in 
three days, you have express orders from me to return home. ’ 
The honest, blunt Quaker, we may suppose, followed his 
instructions to a tittle ; but the cardinal, according to the 
manner of ministers when they are any way pressed, began to 
shuffle ; therefore the Quaker returned, as he was bid. As 
soon as the Protector saw him, he asked, ‘ Well, friend, have 
you got your money ? ’ And upon the man’s answering he 


212 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


had not, the Protector told him, 4 Then leave your direction 
with my secretary, and you shall soon hear from me.’ Upon 
this occasion that great man did not stay to negotiate, or to 
explain, by long, tedious memorials, the reasonableness of his 
demand. No ; though there was a French minister residing 
here, he did not so much as acquaint him with the story, but 
immediately sent a man-of-war or two to the Channel, with 
orders to seize every French ship they could meet with. 
Accordingly, they returned in a few days with two or three 
French prizes, which the Protector ordered to be immediately 
sold, and out of the produce he paid the Quaker what he 
demanded for his ship and cargo. Then he sent for the French 
minister, gave him an account of what had happened, and told 
him there was a balance, which, if he pleased, should be paid 
in to him, to the end that he might deliver it to those of his 
countrymen who were the owners of the French ships that had 
been so taken and sold.” * 

Cromwell never assumed the title of 44 Defender of the 
Faith,” but, beyond all princes of Europe, he was the bulwark 
and barrier against the cruelties of Rome. In all the persecu¬ 
tions of the French Protestants, how nobly his conduct con¬ 
trasts with that of Elizabeth upon the occasion of the massacre 
of St. Bartholomew ! She received the ambassador, but 
Cromwell wrung from the persecutors aid and help for the 
victims. 

The Duke of Savoy raised a new persecution of the 
Vaudois ; many were massacred, and the rest driven from their 
habitations ; whereupon Cromwell sent to the French Court, 
demanding of them to oblige that duke, whom he knew to be 
in their power, to put a stop to this unjust fury, or otherwise 
he must break with them. The cardinal objected to this as 
unreasonable : he would do good offices, he said, but could not 
answer for the effects. However, nothing would satisfy the 

* Any person desirous of authenticating this truly remarkable in¬ 
stance will find it by referring back to the Parliamentary Debates of 
the period. 


FOREIGN - POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 213 


Protector till they obliged the duke to restore all he had taken 
from his Protestant subjects, and to renew their former privi¬ 
leges. Cromwell wrote on this occasion to the duke himself, 
and by mistake omitted the title of “ Royal Highness” on his 
letter ; upon which the major part of the Council of Savoy 
were for returning it unopened. But one of them, representing 
that Cromwell would not pass by such an affront, but would 
certainly lay Villa Franca in ashes and set the Swiss Cantons 
on Savoy, the letter was read, and, with the cardinal’s influ¬ 
ence, had the desired success. The Protector also raised money 
in England for the poor sufferers, and sent over an agent to 
settle all their affairs. He was moved to tears when he heard 
of the sufferings of the people of the valleys. He sent imme¬ 
diately the sum of £2000 from his own purse to aid the exiles. 
He appointed a day of humiliation to be held throughout the 
kingdom, and a general collection on their behalf. The people 
heartily responded to his call, and testified their sympathy with 
their distressed brethren by raising the sum of £40,000 for 
distribution among them. 

At another time there appeared a tumult at Nismes, wherein 
some disorder had been committed by the Huguenots. They 
being apprehensive of severe proceedings upon it, sent one 
over, with great expedition and secrecy, to desire CromwelFs 
intercession and protection. This express found so good a 
reception that Cromwell the same evening despatched a letter 
to the Cardinal, with one indorsed to the king ; also instruc¬ 
tions to his ambassador, Lockhart, requiring him either to pre¬ 
vail for a total immunity of that misdemeanor, or immediately 
to come away. At Lockhart’s application the disorder was 
overlooked ; and though the French Court complained of this 
way of proceeding as a little too imperious, yet the necessity 
of their affairs made them comply. This Lockhart, a wise and 
gallant man, who was Governor of Dunkirk and ambassador at 
the same time, and in high favor with the Protector, told 
Bishop Burnet that when he was sent afterward, as ambassador 
by King Charles, he found he had nothing of that regard that 


214 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


was paid to him in Cromwell’s time. Had Cromwell been on 
the throne of England when Louis XIY. dared to revoke what 
had been called the Irrevocable Edict of Nantes, and by this 
act to inaugurate a protracted and horrible reign of terror, the 
revocation would never have taken place ; or that apparition, 
which Mazarin always dreaded lest he should see, would have 
been beheld—namely, Cromwell at the gates of Paris. 

There was yet a further design, very advantageous to the 
Protestant cause, wherewith Cromwell intended to have begun 
his kingship, had he taken it upon him ; and that was the 
instituting a council for the Protestant religions, in opposition 
to the Congregation de Propaganda Fide at Rome. This body 
was to consist of seven councillors, and four secretaries for 
different provinces. The secretaries were to have £500 salary 
apiece, to keep correspondence everywhere. Ten thousand 
pounds a year was to be a fund for ordinary emergencies; 
further supplies were to be provided as occasions required *, 
and Chelsea College, then an old ruinous building, was to be 
fitted up for their reception. This was a great design, and 
worthy of the man who had formed it. 

It was at the very period of the massacre of the Piedmontese, 
that a treaty with France had been matured, after long and 
tedious negotiation. One demand after another had been con¬ 
ceded to Cromwell by Louis and his crafty adviser, the 
Cardinal Mazarin. John Milton, Oliver’s Private and Foreign 
Secretary, had conducted the negotiation to a successful issue, 
and the French ambassador waited with the treaty ready for 
signature, when Cromwell learned of the sufferings of the 
Vaudois. He forthwith despatched an ambassador, on their 
behalf, to the Court of Turin, and refused to sign the treaty 
with France until their wrongs were redressed. The French 
ambassador was astonished and indignant. He remonstrated 
with Cromwell, and urged that the question bore no connection 
with the terms of the treaty ; nor could his sovereign interfere, 
on any plea, with the subjects of an independent State. 
Mazarin took even bolder ground. He did not conceal his 


FOREIGN" POLICY AND POWER OF CROMWELL. 215 

sympathy with the efforts of the Duke of Savoy to coerce these 
Protestant rebels—declared his conviction that in truth “ the 
Yaudois had inflicted a hundred times worse cruelties on the 
Catholics than they had suffered from them •’ ’ and altogether 
took up a very high and haughty position. Cromwell 
remained unmoved. New protestations met with no better 
reception. He told his majesty of France, in reply to his 
assurances of the impossibility of interfering, that he had 
already allowed his own troops to be employed as the tools of 
the persecutors ; which, though very much like giving his 
Christian Majesty the lie, was not without its effect. Crom¬ 
well would not move from the sacred duty he had assumed to 
himself, as the defender of the persecuted Protestants of 
Europe. The French ambassador applied for an audience to 
take his leave, and was made welcome to go. Louis and 
Mazarin had both to yield to his wishes at last, and became the 
unwilling advocates of the heretics of the valleys. 

Indeed, of the whole foreign policy of Cromwell, in which 
Milton bore so conspicuous a share, a very slight sketch may 
suffice. It is altogether such as every Englishman may be 
proud of. Not an iota of the honors due to a crowned head 
would he dispense with when negotiating, as the Protector of 
England, with the proudest monarchs of Europe. Spain 
yielded, with little hesitation, to accord to him the same style 
as was claimed by her own haughty monarchs ; but Louis of 
France sought, if possible, some compromise. His first letter 
was addressed to “ His Most Serene Highness Oliver, Lord Pro¬ 
tector,” etc., but Cromwell refused to receive it. The more 
familiar title of “ Cousin,” was in like manner rejected, and 
Louis and his crafty minister, the Cardinal Mazarin, were com¬ 
pelled to concede to him the wonted mode of address between 
sovereigns : “ To our Dear Brother Oliver.” “ What !” ex¬ 
claimed Louis to his minister, “ shall I call this base fellow my 
brother?” “Aye,” rejoined his astute adviser, “or your 
father, if it will gain your ends, or you will have him at the 
gates of Paris 1” 


216 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Again, when those of the Valley of Lucerne had unwarily 
rebelled against the Duke of Savoy, which gave occasion to the 
Pope and the neighboring princes of Italy to call and solicit for 
their extirpation, and their prince had positively resolved upon 
it, Cromwell sent his agent to the Duke of Savoy, a prince with 
whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and also 
engaged the Cardinal, and even terrified the Pope himself, 
without so much as doing any grace to the English Roman 
Catholics (nothing being more usual than his saying, “ that 
his ships in the Mediterranean should visit Civita Vecchia, and 
that the sound of his cannon should be heard in Rome”), that 
the Duke of Savoy though it necessary to restore all he had 
taken from them, and did renew all those privileges they had 
formerly enjoyed and newly forfeited. 

“ Cromwell,” says a celebrated writer, u would never suffer 
himself to be denied anything he ever asked of the Cardinal, 
alleging, ‘ that people would be otherwise dissatisfied w 7 hich 
the Cardinal bore very heavily, and complained of to those 
with whom he would be free. One day he visited Madame 
Turenne ; and when he took his leave of her, she, according to 
her custom, besought him to continue gracious to the 
churches. Whereupon the Cardinal told her “ that he knew 
not how to behave himself : if he advised the king to punish 
and suppress their insolence, Cromwell threatened him to join 
with the Spaniard ; and if he showed any favor to them, at 
Rome they accounted him a heretic. ’ ’ 9 

The proceedings the Cardinal did adopt leave no room to 
doubt the conclusion he finally arrived at, as to whether it was 
most advisable to attend to the threats of the Pope of Rome or 
of the Lord Protector of England. 

The prince who bears the closest resemblance to Cromwell is 
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. He, too, was the lion of the 
Protestant cause, and his camp, like that of the great British 
farmer, was the scene of piety and extraordinary bravery. 
Like Cromwell, he was rapid, and irresistible as a mountain 
torrent, on the field. Like Cromwell, he alarmed the councils 


FOREIGN POLICY AUD POWER OF CROMWELL. 217 


of the Roman Pontiff and struck terror into the Imperialist 
cabinet. Far inferior to Cromwell—for who of all generals or 
statesmen equalled him ?—yet both regarded themselves as set 
apart and consecrated for the defence of Protestantism against 
the encroachments and cruelties of Popery. This idea largely 
entered into the mind of the Protector. He saw the state of 
Europe ; he felt for its wrung and lacerated condition. In his 
age he was the only Protestant prince ; the so-called Protestant 
statesmen were in league with Rome. He raised his banner 
against the Vatican, declared his side and his convictions, and 
made the tyrants and diplomatists of Europe quail and shrink 
before the shadow of his power and the terror of his name. 
In the history of Protestantism he occupies the distinguished 
place, in the very foreground. That we are entitled to say 
thus much of him is proved by a reference to his own words, 
as well as to the better evidence of his deeds. 

Nor must we fail to glance at the sea. During the time of 
Charles, pirates infested our own coast, scoured Devonshire 
and the Channel. Beneath the Protectorate things were 
speedily amended. The guns of the enemy rolled no more 
round the British coast till Cromwell was dead and Charles 
Stuart came back ; and then, indeed, even London herself 
heard them thundering up the Medway and the Thames. 
Turks, pirates, and corsairs, these were swept away of course ; 
but in those days Spain herself was but a kingdom of robbers 
and buccaneers. Waves of old golden romance ; what imagi¬ 
nation does not kindle over the stories of the Spanish Main ! 
The power of Spain was there ; Spain, the bloodiest power of 
Europe ; Spain, the land of the Inquisition ; Spain, the dis¬ 
graced, degraded ; land of every superstition. Against her 
Cromwell declared war. Alliance with France, hostility to 
Spain, and we have seen how the immortal Blake and his fire¬ 
ships scoured those distant seas. That great sea-king ! Have 
we not seen the action of the Port of Santa Cruz, beneath the 
Peak of Teneriffe ?—the thundering whirlwinds of fire and 
flying iron hail. Sixteen war-ships, full of silver, all safely 


218 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


moored, as it seemed, in that grand castellated and unassailable 
bay ; the whole eight castles, a very Sevastopol there ! See 
Blake entering beneath that living thunder, all starting from its 
sleep ; see him, with his ship silencing the castles, sinking the 
mighty gun-ships, and sailing quietly from Santa Cruz bay 
again. Those were the days, too, in which Oliver possessed 
England of Jamaica, and asserted the right of England, also, in 
those seas. It was thus that His Highness grappled with the 
Spanish Antichrist ; and it must he admitted that Spanish 
Antichrist has never been, from the day of Cromwell to this 
hour, what it was before. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 

6( Yet is their strength labor and sorrow this, after all, 
must be said even of this great and most successful man. Our 
conception of him is such that we can well believe he longed 
to be at rest. It was an amazing work, that in which he was 
the actor ; but with what toil and endurance and sleepless 
energy had he to travail day and night ! The honor of knight¬ 
hood and £500 a year forever was offered by a proclamation, 
by Charles Stuart, from his vile, ragged) and filthy Court in 
Paris, to any who would take the life of the Protector ; and 
there were many in England who longed to see the mighty 
monarch dethroned. In his palace chambers lived his noble 
mother, nearly ninety, now trembling at every sound, lest it be 
some ill to her noble and royal son. 

We are not surprised at the absence of much that seems, to 
our minds, happiness in those last days. The higher we go, 
brother, in the great kingdom of duty, the less we must expect 
to enjoy, apparently, in the picturesque villages of happiness. 
Ah ! but the sense brightens and sweetens within ; for there 
are they “ who taste and see that the Lord is good.” “ Do 
you not see,” says our anti-Cromwell friend, “ a Divine com¬ 
pensation in this unhappiness of Cromwell ?” No, we do not. 
What, in his old age was Baxter happier ? or Vane ? or were 
the last days of Owen more sweetly soothed ? On the con¬ 
trary. Weak Richard Cromwell—who does nothing—steps 
into the by-lanes of life, and goes serenely off the stage. 
Would you rather, then, be Richard than Oliver ?—rather have 
Richard’s quiet than Oliver’s unrest ? It is well to sigh for 
calm ; but to sigh for it, indeed, we must deserve it. Easy it 
is for us who do nothing worth calling a deed, to take our 
Rhine journeys, to stand in Venice, or to see the broad suu 


220 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


shine on 11 s from Ben Mucdhui or Locli Lomond, or the moon 
rise over Grasmere. But men who have done a thousand times 
over our work never know that hour of rest. What then, they 
are rewarded better than we are, and shall be ! No, thou 
caitiff, coward Royalist ! Say not to us, “ See, here is the 
life thou callest a brave one going out in ashes. What is 
Oliver, the just and the holy, better than I, with my songs, and 
my harlots, and my dice ?” And we say, “ Thou poor, halt, 
and maimed rascal, he is every way better ; for he has peace. ’ ’ 
Oh, doubtless, then, the hard, rough hand of the old Marston 
and Naseby soldier would take once more the gentle hand of 
Elizabeth, clasped tightly thirty-eight years ago ; floods of 
tenderness would come over him as they come over all such 
men. In those last days it was that he said to his Parliament, 
“ There is not a man living can say I sought this place—not a 
man or woman living on English ground. I can say in the 
presence of God, in comparison with whom we are like creep¬ 
ing ants upon the earth, I would have been glad to have lived 
under my woodside, and have kept a flock of sheep, rather 
than have undertaken such a government as this. ” Yes ; you 
can see him there, in the great, stately palace, in some quiet 
room, talking with Elizabeth over the old, free, healthy, quiet 
days at Huntingdon, and St. Ives, and Ely, and Ramsey—days 
surely, never to be known again until the deeper quiet of eter¬ 
nity is reached. Do you not sympathize with that quiet, timid, 
lady-like wife, in her dove-like beauty, trembling near the 
eagle heart of her great husband, and wondering, “ When he 
is gone, what will, what can become of me ?” As we walk in 
fancy through the old palace chambers, we think many such 
things about them. 

Death threw his shadow over Oliver’s palace before he broke 
in. The following of Thurloe is touching : “ My Lord Pro¬ 
tector’s mother, of ninety-four years old, died last night. A 
little before her death she gave my lord her blessing in these 
words : ‘ The Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and 
comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great 


THE LAST DAYS OF CKOMWELL. 


221 


things for the glory of your most high God, and to he a relief 
unto His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. 
Good-night. ’ ” “ Taken from the evil to come. ’ ’ One is glad 

she went first, before the great change. Then his heart was 
shaken by the death of the Lady Elizabeth, his beloved daugh¬ 
ter, Mrs. Claypole. This broke down his heart. Her long 
illness ; his tenderness, as father, so extreme ; his constant watch¬ 
ing by her side, the spectator of her violent convulsive fits : the 
strong soldier, who had ridden his war-charger conquering over 
so many fields, bowed before the blow when her death came. 

And, therefore, only a few days after, when he was seized 
with illness at Hampton Court, he felt that it was for death ; 
and that death-bed is one of the most profoundly memorable, 
even as that life was one of the most illustrious and glorious. 
But it was more than the death-bed of a hero ; it was the 
death-bed of a Christian. In that death-chamber prayers— 
deep, powerful, long—went up, and men sought to lay hold on 
God that He might spare him ; but, says one, “ We could not 
be more desirous he should abide than he was content and 
willing to be gone. He called for his Bible, and desired an 
honorable and godly person there, wfith others present, to read 
unto him that passage in Phil. iv. 11-13 : ‘ Not that I speak 
in respect of want : for I have learned, in whatsoever state I 
am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, 
and I know how to abound : everywhere and in all things I am 
instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound 
and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which 
strengtheneth me.’ Which read, said he, to use his own 
words as near as we can remember them, ‘ This Scripture did 
once save my life, when my eldest son, poor Oliver, died, 
which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed it did.’ And 
then, repeating the words of the text himself, and reading the 
tenth and eleventh verses, of St. Paul’s contentment and sub¬ 
mission to the will of God in all conditions, said he, * It’s 
true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure 
of grace ; but what shall I do ? Ah, poor creature, it is a hard 


222 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


lesson for me to take out ! I find it so. ’ Hut reading on to 
the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, ‘ I can do all things 
through Christ which strengthened me,’ then faith began to 
work, and his heart to find support and comfort, and he said 
thus to himself, ‘ He that was Paul’s Christ is my Christ too 
and so ‘ he drew water out of the wells of salvation.’ ” 

“ Oliver, we find,” says Carlyle, “ spoke much of ‘ the 
covenants,’ which, indeed, are the grand axes of all, in that 
Puritan universe of his. Two covenants ; one of works, with 
fearful judgment for our shortcomings therein, one of grace, 
with unspeakable mercy ; gracious engagements, covenants 
which the eternal God has vouchsafed to make with his feeble 
creature, man. Two—and by Christ’s death they have become 
one—there, for Oliver, is the divine solution of this our mys¬ 
tery of life. ‘ They were two, ’ he was heard ejaculating —- 
‘ but put into one before the foundation of the world ! ’ And 
again : ‘ It is holy and true, it is holy and true, it is holy and 
true ! Who made it holy and true ? The Mediator of the 
covenant.’ And again : ‘ The covenant is but one. Faith in 
the covenant is my only support, and, if I believe not, He 
abides faithful.’ When his wife and children stood weeping 
round him, he said, ‘ Love not this world ! ’ ‘I say unto 
you, it is not good that you should love this world ! ’ No. 
‘ Children, live like Christians ; I leave you the covenant to 
feed upon ! ’ Yes, my brave one, even so. The covenant, 
and eternal soul of covenants, remains sure to all the faithful ; 
deeper than the foundations of this world, earlier than they, 
and more lasting than they.” 

“ Look also at the following : dark hues and bright ; im¬ 
mortal light beams struggling amid the black vapors of death. 
Look, and conceive a great sacred scene, the sacredest this 
world sees—and think of it ; do not speak of it in these mean 
days which have no sacred word. ‘ Is there none that says, 
Who will deliver me from this peril ? ’ moaned he once. 
Many hearts are praying, O wearied one ! ‘ Man can do noth¬ 

ing, ’ rejoins he : ‘ God can do what He will. ’ Another time, 


THE LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 


223 


again thinking of the covenant, ‘ Is there none that will come 
and praise God, whose mercies endure forever ? ’ ” 

Here also are ejaculations caught up at intervals, undated, in 
those final days. “ Lord, Thou knowest, if I do desire to 
live, it is to show forth Thy praise and to declare Thy works !” 
Once he was heard saying, “It is a fearful thing to fall into 
the hands of the living God !” “ This was spoken three 

times,” says Maidston, “ his repetitions usually being very 
weighty, and with great vehemency of spirit.” Thrice over 
he said this, looking into the eternal kingdoms. But again : 
“ All the promises of God are in Him yea, and in Him amen ; 
to the glory of God by us in Jesus Christ.” “ The Lord hath 
filled me with as much assurance of His pardon and His love 
as my soul can hold.” “I think I am the poorest wretch 
that lives ; but I love God, or rather am beloved of God.” 
“ I am a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, through 
Christ that strengthened me !” 

On the 30th of August, however (having in the interim 
been removed from Hampton Court to Whitehall), he had so 
far changed his sentiments as to think it necessary to declare 
his eldest son Richard his successor in the Protectorate. And, 
on the evening before his departure, in the same doubtful 
temper of mind, though still greatly supported by his enthusi¬ 
asm, he uttered the following prayer : 

“ Lord, although I am a wretched and miserable creature, I 
am in covenant with Thee through grace, and I may, I will, 
come unto Thee for my people. Thou hast made me a mean 
instrument to do them some good, and Thee service ; and 
many of them have set too high a value upon me, though 
others wish and would be glad of my death. But, Lord, how¬ 
ever Thou dost dispose of me, continue to go on, and do good 
for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and 
mutual love ; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of 
reformation, and make the name of Christ glorious in the 
world. Teach those who look too much upon Thy instru¬ 
ments to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to 


224 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people 
too ; and pardon the folly of this short prayer, for Jesus Christ 
His sake, and give us a good night if it be Thy pleasure.” 

It was the 3d of September, 1658, the anniversary of his 
famous battles of Dunbar and Worcester ; a day always cele¬ 
brated by rejoicings in honor of these important victories. 
When the sun rose Oliver was speechless, and between three 
and four o’clock in the afternoon he expired. God shattered 
all his strength on this festival of his glory and his triumphs. 

The sorrow of the Protector’s friends and of the majority of 
the nation cannot be described. “ The consternation and 
astonishment of all people,” wrote Fauconberg to Henry Crom¬ 
well, “ are inexpressible ; their hearts seem as if sunk within 
them. And if it was thus abroad, your lordship may imagine 
what it was in the family of His Highness and other near rela¬ 
tions. My poor wife (Mary, Oliver’s third daughter), I know 
not what in the earth to do with her. When seemingly 
quieted, she bursts out again into passions that tear her very 
heart in pieces ; nor can I blame her, considering what she has 
lost. It fares little better with others. God, I trust, will 
sanctify this bitter cup to us all.” “ I am not able to speak 
or write,” said Thurloe. “ This stroke is so sore, so unex¬ 
pected, the providence of God is so stupendous ; considering 
the person that has fallen, the time and season wherein God 
took him away, with other circumstances, I can do nothing but 
put my mouth in the dust and say, It is the Lord. 

It is not to be said what affliction the army and the people 
show to his late Highness ; his name is already precious. 
Never was there any man so prayed for.” 

“ Hush ! poor weeping Mary,” says Carlyle, after reading 
the foregoing extract; here is a life-battle right nobly done. 
Seest thou not 

“ The storm is changed into a calm 
At his command and will; 

So that the waves which raged before, 

Now quiet are and still! 


THE LAST DAYS OF CEOMWELL. 


225 


“ Then are they glad, because at rest, 

And quiet now they be ; 

So to the haven he them brings, 

Which they desired to see.” 

“ ‘ Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.’ Blessed 
are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. ‘ Amen,’ saith the 
spirit, Amen ! They ‘ rest' from their labors, and their works 
do follow them. , ” 

And what is the verdict upon all these amazing faculties of 
mind ? Mr. Forster says, “ They failed in their mission upon 
earth.” Failed ! then Gustavus at Lutzen failed ; then every 
martyr in every age has failed. No ! we will not call that life 
a failure. It was success ; it was success in itself, and in what 
followed it. Cromwell has been called the armed soldier of 
democracy. No, he was not that ; he was the armed soldier 
of Puritanism. His knighthood was religious ; and if you 
judge him accurately, he bears just the same relation to the 
consolidation and settlement of our constitution that William 
the Conqueror bears to the consolidation and settlement of 
feudalism. Oliver the Conqueror, in himself, and in what he 
marks, is an epoch in the development of English law. 

Cromwell was the greatest and most illustrious instance of 
reaction, in the great and rising middle-class, against feudal 
tyranny. The contest was carried on between the king and his 
people alone. In other and not less deserving agitations the 
cause of tyranny had received aid from neighboring monarchs ; 
in this case the battle was fought by the representatives of the 
soil alone. The struggles of the Netherlands, beneath leaders 
whose power and eloquence and sagacity have been the subjects 
of romance and poetry, from that time to this hour, were un¬ 
successful ; but not unsuccessful were we. 

It is mournful that every chapter of constitutional law has 
been inaugurated by the sword. The sword of Cromwell alone 
gave victory to the people over the king in the first days of the 
contest. Had not those victories been obtained, this land 
would have been at the feet of a cold and cruel tyrant. The 


/ 


226 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


king’s nature was so well known that his friends dreaded a 
victory upon his side. The country would have been one 
widespread scene of decimation and attainder. Victory on the 
banners of Charles would have sealed the enslavement of our 
land for long ages. When the will of the king became the 
tyrannizer of the country, and over the whole population of the 
land there seemed to be no hope for enfranchisement or escape, 
then Cromwell arose—as Prince Arthur by the side of the 
enchanted lake beheld suddenly arise the hand bearing the 
sword, the good sword of Excalibur. So law was beaten down. 
When in Church and State spreads one wide waste of desola¬ 
tion, then, out of the ranks of the people, arose Cromwell ! 
You may refuse his monument a niche in the House of Lords ; 
you may allow his name to be cast out. It matters not ; he 
marks an era in the history of English law ! In the next gen¬ 
eration the tide of tyranny arose again, and beat in storms 
upon the people. It matters not ! William I. does not more 
surely mark an epoch in the history of England than Cromwell 
does ; his memory and his name tower aloft over the ages. 
Read his deeds, and you will find that while he conquered he 
defined the new and enlarged limits of English representation. 
He conquered Great Britain and Ireland, and united both in 
one peaceful government. He indicated the destiny of the 
West Indies. A born child of justice and of rectitude, he 
glanced along all the headlands of unrighteousness, and de¬ 
clared their corruption and their ruin. He shivered absolutism, 
while making himself the most absolute prince. He broke the 
wand of feudalism and cast it into the deep sea. 

We will leave him now. They gave him a magnificent 
funeral in the old Abbey, where they had buried Blake and the 
Protector’s mother. But when Charles Stuart returned, the 
bodies were taken up and buried at Tyburn, the head of Crom¬ 
well exposed over Westminster Hall. The dastards and the 
fools ! But, after all, it is not certain that the body buried in 
the Abbey was his body. In a rare old volume we have, one 
hundred and sixty years old, it is confidently asserted, on the 


THE LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 


227 


authority of the nurse of Cromwell, that he was privately 
buried by night in the Thames, in order to avert the indignities 
which it was foreseen would be wreaked on his body ; and this 
by his own direction. Other rumors assign another spot to his 
burial. Ah, well ! it matters little. We know where his 
work is, and how far that is buried. We see him standing 
there, ushering in a new race of English kings. True, as 
Rufus or Henry Beauclerc seemed to carry England no further 
in the career of progress than before the Norman accession, so, 
in the mad cruelty of the succeeding kings to Cromwell, all 
seemed lost. But no ! He was the breakwater of tyranny. 
By his Parliament we have seen he amended English represen¬ 
tation. He held aloft in his hand the charter to guide, he 
knew he could not give. Show us almost any act of legislative 
greatness, and we will show it you as anticipated by Cromwell. 
Of course there was a wild outbreak and outcry when Charles 
came from Dover to London, and blazing bonfires, and may- 
poles, and fireworks, and garlands, inaugurating a new despot¬ 
ism ; not the despotism of God and goodness, not the 
despotism of power and majesty, but the despotism of lust and 
licentiousness, of cruelty and cowardice, of fraud and intoler¬ 
ance, of Nell Gwynne and Castlemaine and Portsmouth ; and 
good men gave up all for lost. But that royal monarch whose 
bones had been insulted, and whose memory had been cursed, 
he was not dead ! Even Clarendon was compelled to contrast 
his royal master’s throne with that ungarnished one ; and men 
who, like Baxter, had only irritated and annoyed and weakened 
his Government by their bilious maundering, threw back glances 
of sadness to those days, and thought and spoke of their lost 
happiness with a sigh. Of Baxter this is especially true, and it 
is representatively true. We always feel, after reading his 
irritable attempts to annoy the Government of the great Pro¬ 
tector during his life, that there is a fine but a just compensa¬ 
tion in the tones in which he bewails the dead Protector’s 
memory, and the decency and order of England in that 
departed day ; uot to speak of his own arrest and trial, and the 


228 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


attempts made by the wicked Jeffries upon tbe honor and life 
of the venerable old saint. 

But the shadow of the great Protector was over the land 
still. Tear him limb from limb—behead him—affix his head 
to any gibbet—you cannot get rid of his work so. He failed, 
says Mr. Forster ! 

“ They never fail who die in a great cause. 

The block may soak their gore, 

Their head be strung to city gates or castle walls, 

But still their spirit walks abroad !’ ’ 

As the mad voluptuary rode down to the House, did he never 
gaze up to that head he believed to be his powerful con¬ 
queror’s, and see in the scowl of the skeleton skull the aveng¬ 
ing genius of the country, whose holy altars he had profaned, 
and whose rights he had outraged ? The mind of Cromwell 
was abroad, and the genius of freedom, as represented by him, 
conquered once more. 

But now, for the present, we leave him, to our imagination, 
calm in his uncrowned majesty ; surrounded by his illustri¬ 
ous compatriots ; friend and fellow-laborer of Hampden and 
Pym ; of Selden and of Hale ; whose friendly hand employed 
and fostered the genius of Milton and of Marvell ; whose holy 
hours were solaced by the sacred converse of Owen and of 
Howe, of Manton and of Goodwyn and Caryl ; whose strong 
arm-shielded his own land ; whose awful spirit overshadowed 
with fear the greatest nations and greatest statesmen of his 
age ; by whose command Blake dashed in pieces the sceptre of 
Spain, and bowed even the nobility of Holland. Some there 
are who find a fitting comparison between his deeds and those 
of some despots of later date. As well compare rats to lions. 
For around his name so distinct an aureole of light gathers, 
that we shall refuse to see the justice of the comparison with 
even the greatest statesmen of antiquity. And while we rejoice 
that the exigency of our nation, since his age, has not needed 
such a man, we shall see in him, and his appearance, a Provi- 


THE LAST DAYS OF CROMWELL. 


229 


dence not less distinct than that which scattered the Armada ; 
which maps out the great predispositions and predestinations of 
history ; which gave us an English birth ; which disposes all 
great events, and has resources of great men to answer and 
bless a people’s prayer. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


cromwell’s contemporaries : sir harry yane. 

The name of Sir Harry Vane is better known to the greater 
number of English readers, probably, from Cromwell’s well- 
known ejaculation when he was dissolving the Long Parlia¬ 
ment, than from any other association. His life has not been 
often written, his works have not been reprinted, and, of the 
great statesmen of the age to w r hich he belonged, his name is 
perhaps the most seldom pronounced. Wordsworth has indeed 
included him in his famous sonnet— 

“ Great men have been among us ; hands that penned 
And tongues that uttered wisdom—better none : 

The later Sidney, Marvell, Harrington, 

Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend.” 

Especially the lovers of true freedom should treat reverently 
the name of Vane ; it should be had in everlasting remem¬ 
brance. No character of his times is more consistent ; it was 
elevated by the beauty of holiness. We have no doubt that 
his views were far too ideal and abstract for practical states¬ 
manship ; he demanded too much from human nature beneath 
the influence of other principles ; there was very much of the 
crochetiness and impossibility of Baxter in him, but no man 
was more elevated and unselfish in all his aims. It would be 
difficult to find a character so confessedly unselfish. He was, 
in an eminent degree, possessed of that virtue we denominate 
magnanimity ; his views were great, his plans were great, and 
he was prepared to a corresponding self-sacrifice in order to 
realize and achieve them. 

While this was the case—while in a most true and compre¬ 
hensive sense he w T as a Christian, and while Christianity was to 
him not an intellectual system of barren speculative opinions— 
he was so unfortunate as to be only, in his life, a target for 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


231 


malignity to shoot its sharp arrows at ; and since his martyr¬ 
dom, or murder, men like Drs. Manton and Cotton Mather, 
who might have been expected to treat his name with tender¬ 
ness, have been among his maligners. The account of him by 
Baxter is in that excellent man’s usual vein of narrowness and 
bitterness when writing of those whose opinions were adverse 
to his own. He is only a “fanatic democrat,” almost a 
papist, and quite a juggler ; while Hume, when he comes to 
touch upon his life and writings, only finds them “ absolutely 
unintelligible” (it is not necessary to suppose that he had ever 
looked at or attempted to read one of them) “ exhibiting no 
traces of eloquence or common sense. ’ ’ While Clarendon was 
only able to sneer at him, and at his memory, as “ a perfect 
enthusiast, and, without doubt, did believe himself inspired.” 
“ Anthony Wood,” as Forster says, “ foams at the mouth” 
(there was much of the mad dog in that Wood) when he even 
mentions him. “ In sum, he was the Proteus of his times, a 
mere hotch-potch of religion, a chief ringleader of all the 
frantic sectarians, of a turbulent spirit and a working brain, of 
a strong composition of choler and melancholy, an inventor not 
only of whimseys in religion, but also of crotchets in the State 
(as his several models testify), and composed only of treason, 
ingratitude, and baseness.” Glad should we have been had 
Mr. John Forster do for the memory of Sir Harry Vane what 
he has done for that of Sir John Eliot. From a load of 
calumny and misrepresentation heaped over his murdered 
remains, it is the duty of all who reverence the rights of con¬ 
science to relieve his name. Few of those who have ascended 
the scaffold for freedom deserve more fervent and affectionate 
regards at the hands of those they have blessed by their hero¬ 
ism than he. Perhaps few of the innumerable travellers who 
turn aside to walk through Raby Woods, or to survey the mag¬ 
nificent masses of Raby Castle, the great northern seat of the 
Duke of Cleveland, call to mind the fact that he is the lineal 
descendant of that Vane who, for maintaining precisely that 
which gave to the peer a dukedom, with all its heraldries. 


232 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


expiated that which was in his age an offensive crime by losing 
his head on Tower Hill. 

We have been unable, with any satisfaction, to discover 
whether the patriot was born in Raby Castle ; but the only 
worthy likeness we have seen of him hangs in the recess in the 
beautiful drawing-room there. There, no doubt, many of his 
days were passed ; it was his patrimony and inheritance ; 
thence he issued several of those tracts which startled, even if 
they did not enlighten, his contemporaries ; thence especially 
issued his famous “ Healing Question,” which so aroused the 
ire of Cromwell. 

His father, the elder Sir Harry Vane, was the first of his 
family who possessed Raby Castle ; he does not commend him¬ 
self much to any higher feelings of our nature. The mother of 
Vane was a Darcey, and his name mingles with some of the 
noblest families of England. His father was high in favor at 
Court ; but very early it became manifest that the son, neither 
in the affairs of Church or State, was likely to follow the pre¬ 
scriptions of mere tradition and authority. At the age of 
fourteen or fifteen, he says on his trial, “ God was pleased to 
lay the foundation or groundwork of repentance in me, for the 
bringing me home to Himself by His wonderful rich and free 
grace, revealing His Son in me, that, by the knowledge of the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He hath sent, I might, 
even while here in the body, be made partaker of eternal life, 
in the first fruits of it.” He studied at Westminster School, 
then at Magdalen College, Oxford ; then he travelled in 
France, and spent some time in Geneva. What was wanting 
to confirm the impressions he had received was given to him 
there ; he came home to perplex and astonish his father, who 
was simply a vain vacillating courtier, only desirous to stand 
well with whatever might be likely to pay best. Laud took 
the young recusant in hand, we may believe with astonishing 
results ; exactly what we might conceive from an interview of 
calm, clear reason, with that ridiculous old archprelatical 
absurdity. Vane sought the home and the counsels of Pym. 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


233 


If the lawyer was not likely to help or to deepen his purely 
religious convictions, at any rate he would not interfere witu 
them ; while the touch of his political wisdom would be like ». 
spark of purifying fire upon his mind, consuming all the falsr 
and confusing notions .which must inevitably have sought tc 
nestle there beneath such an influence as that his father would 
seek to exercise over him. He went to America. Bold ii\ 
conception, with a rich, only too dreamy imagination, perhaps 
little prognosticating the strange career through which England 
was to pass, impatient of conventionalities, sick to the soul 
of the divisions and heart-burnings of the Church, forecasting 
and dreading the ambition of Strafford, and the cruel, narrow 
resolution of the king ; the wretched superstition of Laud, 
rocking to and fro in his old Gothic chair of abuses, like an 
Archimage with his dim blear eyes ;—it seemed natural to the 
young man that America should furnish him with all he needed. 

America was the hope of the world then. It was the sanc¬ 
tuary and the shrine of freedom, especially of free faith and 
opinion. The young dreamer reached Boston early in 1635, 
and was admitted to the freedom of Massachusetts on the 3d 
of March in the same year, and he became Governor of Massa¬ 
chusetts the following year. He was but a youth in years, but 
the creed of his future life was remarkably brought out and 
illustrated in the story of his government. It was a brief 
period too, for he took his passage home in August, 1637. 
He did not, as Richard Baxter so wrongly says, steal away by 
night, but he stepped on board openly, with marks of honor 
from his friends ; large concourses of people followed him to 
the ship with every demonstration and mark of esteem, and 
parting salutes were fired from the town and castle. He, no 
doubt, found the dreams he had entertained when he set foot 
on those shores dissolve ; who has not known such dreams and 
such dissolutions ? There was little space for freedom of opin¬ 
ion to thrive in there ; his great thought of and faith in 
universal toleration was intolerable, even to many of the noblest 
people of that age, and especially to the ruling minds of Massa- 


234 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


chusetts. Vane, even in those earliest years, when he was 
getting his harness on, was clear in his perceptions of the 
rights of the human soul. We do not enter here into the inci¬ 
dents of his government of the young colony ; we do not even 
touch upon his conduct with reference to his vindication of 
Mrs. Hutchinson, a proceeding which brought him so severe a 
measure of reprehension then and after. We believe he was 
nobly right, and only in advance of his age. He, no doubt, 
learned much in the period of his residence in New England 
which fitted him for service on a larger and far more important 
field. A nobler career awaited him very shortly after his 
return. 

After a short period of retirement, during which he married 
Frances Wray, daughter of Sir Christopher Wray, of Ashby, 
in Lincolnshire, we find him elected, in 1640, member for the 
borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, illustrious predecessor of 
Andrew Marvell in the representation of that place. This step, 
which gave him the opportunity for a prominent use of his 
eminent abilities, filled the Court, the king, and his father too, 
with alarm, and instant steps were taken “ to propitiate the 
possible hostility of the young and resolute statesman.” He 
received the honor of knighthood, he was elevated to the office 
of Treasurer of the Navy, with Sir William Russell. Again, in 
the same year, he was elected member for Hull, to serve in the 
Long Parliament ; but his own course was clear and unswerv¬ 
ing. When the appeal to arms was made by Charles, he 
resigned the patent of office, but was instantly reappointed 
Treasurer of the Navy by the Parliament, and he gave a singu¬ 
lar instance of his patriotism. The fees of his office were great 
in times of peace, but in times of war they became enormous, 
amounting to about £30,000 per annum. These vast emolu¬ 
ments he resigned, only stipulating that a thousand a year 
should be paid to a deputy. Before this he had acquired a 
notoriety which many have thought not enviable, as being the 
chief means, the most distinct witness, in proving the intended 
treason of Strafford : he discovered in the red velvet cabinet 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 235 


those papers, the notes of a conference, in which Strafford’s 
counsels had been of such a nature, that Yane could only, as a 
patriot, reveal them to Pym. Pym, upon the occasion of the 
great impeachment, revealed them, and Yane avowed the 
authenticity of the revelation. It decided the fate of the Earl. 
It must also have been, if that were wanting, a more inevitable 


step, deciding Yane’s political relations also ; henceforth he 
became a star in the Parliamentary firmament, and with inces¬ 
sant activity he committed himself to the affairs of his country. 
He soared, indeed, above party strifes, or if he served with a 
party, it was with that which we identify with the names of 
Pym and Hampden. For the lower sections of political dis¬ 
pute he had no ear, neither had he any ear for any of the innu¬ 
merable frays of opinion in religion, with which, in those days, 
the kingdom rang from end to end. There was no life for him 
but in conviction ; he ever lived too much aloof from those 


walks in which inferior minds were to be found. On his trial 
he says, referring to the part he took in his mission to Edin¬ 
burgh, where he assisted in framing the Solemn League and 
Covenant with Scotland : 

“ Nor will I deny but that, as to the manner of the prosecu¬ 
tion of the Covenant to other ends than itself warrants, and 
with a rigid oppressive spirit (to bring all dissenting minds and 
tender consciences under one uniformity of Church discipline 
and government), it was utterly ayainst my judgment. Fori 
always esteemed it more agreeable to the Word of God, that 
the ends and work declared in the Covenant should be pro¬ 
moted in a spirit of love and forbearance to differing judgments 
and consciences, that thereby we might be approving ourselves 
in doing that to others which we desire they should do to us, 
and so, though on different principles, be found joint and 
faithful advances of the reformation contained in the Covenant, 
both public and personal.” 

For a long period Yane wrought with Cromwell in seeking 
to bring the affairs of the Civil Wars to an issue. He and 
Cromwell wrought together the plan of the celebrated Self- 


236 OLIVER CROMWELL. 

denying Ordinance, in 1644-1645 ; it decided, as our readers 
remember, the campaign ; and, from 1649 to 1653, it has been 
truly said the power and ability of his executive ruled Eng¬ 
land : he was the director of those great achievements in which 
Blake asserted and maintained the supremacy of England on 
the seas ; his genius devised the means by which the Dutch 
flag, which had waved triumphantly and insolently in defiance, 
suffered signal humiliation. Those were the days, as we have 
seen, when Van Troinp, after having driven Blake into harbor 
with the loss of two sail only, although the Dutch admiral had 
eighty and the English only thirty-seven perfectly equipped 
ships under his command, hoisted a broom at his masthead, 
as if he had swept his antagonists from their own waters. Sir 
Harry Vane presented his estimates and demands for supplies, 
and he procured a resolution that £40,000 per month should be 
appropriated to the arsenals and navy-yards ; he prepared and 
brought in a Bill ; he met with singular bravery and sagacity 
the great national emergency. Blake was set afloat with no 
less than fourscore ships of war, and Van Tromp was in turn, 
as we know, driven from the English Channel. 

He also devised a Bill for the reform of English representa¬ 
tion, in its particulars exceedingly like that known as the Eng¬ 
lish Reform Bill of our day. A bold and most remarkable 
measure ; for it was the design of this great spirit all along to 
secure for the country constitutional liberty ; its aim was to 
make it impossible for a tyrant like Charles to dominate again 
over English freedom. Was the country prepared for any 
such measure ? Surely the result of a few years abundantly 
proved it was not ; but noble men and free pure minds are 
wont to estimate the average mind from their own standard—it 
is the error of lofty intelligences in all things. Vane was mov¬ 
ing ever in the lofty light of the Empyrean. Perhaps he 
knew, theoretically, that the heart is deceitful, and that man is 
fallen ; but he was wont to act as trusting man ; thus he gave 
to the political suffrages of the people immense additions by 
his proposed measure. It was, however, not destined to 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 237 


receive the indorsement of legal sanction. It has been usual 
to be very severe on Cromwell ; but no doubt he knew the art 
of governing, and its depths and demands, better than the pure 
and spiritual Vane. It is one point to bid our readers to 
notice how, at this time and in these matters, the brain of 
Cromwell and the hand of Vane worked together. It was 
probably at this period that Milton addressed to Vane his well- 
known sonnet, with the strength of which is combined also a 
fine discrimination of the great statesman’s character, and those 
various marks of eminence and goodness which give to him so 
considerable a claim upon our admiration : 

“Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old, 

Than whom a better senator ne’er held 
The helm of Eome, when gowns, not arms, repelled 
The fierce Epirot and the Afric bold ; 

Whether to settle peace, or to unfold 

The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled ; 

Then to advise how War may, best upheld, 

Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 

In all her equipage : besides to know 
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, 

What severs each, how hast thou learned, which few have done : 
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ; 

Therefore, on thy firm hands Eeligion leans 
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.” 

A fine, ethereal, abstract spirit : we see how, when forced 
by immediate and pressing necessity, he was compelled to deal 
with the difficulties of the hour, such as the raising of £40,000 
a month to fit out the fleet for Blake to sweep the Hollanders 
from our seas, he came down upon his necessities like swift 
lightning, astounding the House by his bold and daring methods 
for raising the money ; and in a similar spirit of swift and clear- 
glancing intelligence, he recast the representation of England. 

We are constrained to think that the moment selected for 
the introduction of this measure was very unpropitious. It led 
to the final rupture between Vane and Cromwell. Cromwell, 
as we know, dissolved the House, was guilty of that great 


238 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


crime, or conquest, which has divided the opinions of histo¬ 
rians since, which some have called Usurpation, while some 
have called it the illegitimate exercise of power for saving and 
patriotic purposes. It was then those words were uttered, 
“ Sir Harry Vane ! Sir Harry Vane ! the Lord deliver me from 
Sir Harry Vane !” Cromwell alluded to Vane when he said, 
“ One person might have prevented all this, but he was a jug¬ 
gler, and had not common honesty ; the Lord had done with 
him, however, and chosen honester and worthier instruments 
for carrying on his work. ’ ’ How can we ever adequately esti¬ 
mate the misconceptions and the misunderstandings of great, 
good men ? We believe in Vane, and we believe in Cromwell. 
How can the faiths be reconciled ? Only in the remembrance 
that Vane was eminently and consistently a Republican ; Crom¬ 
well never was. Mr. Forster seems ever to forget this in his lives 
of the statesmen of the period. Was it not as possible for Crom¬ 
well to be true to his conception of Reformation and Government 
as the Republicans ? Cromwell never desired the dissolution of 
the ancient monarchy. He would have saved Charles, but that 
the treason and faithlessness of Charles made it impossible ; 
the king was his own destroyer. We know how the nation 
was split into parties. Cromwell desired to restore the nation 
to unity, and he took such a course as best enabled it to rise 
to this restoration. A few days after the so-called usurpation 
found Vane quietly settled in Raby Castle ; and, shortly after, 
at Belleau, in Lincolnshire, he prosecuted those studies of 
learning, philosophy, and religion, or, as his biographer says, 
“ waited patiently for the first fitting occasion for striking 
another stroke for the good old cause.” 

He was a restless spirit. He was restless w T ith the restless¬ 
ness of Baxter, his old foe. We see many points of resem¬ 
blance between him and Baxter, in his keen metaphysics, his 
earnest impracticable practicalness, his incessant activity, his 
intense desire to see his own ideas realized, his impatience of 
other men’s ideas. We do not charge him with the querulous¬ 
ness of Baxter. His mind moved in so large and healthful an 




Execution of Charles the First, 





























































































































































1 ^ . ■. 









HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


239 


orbit that there was imparted a grand manliness to all his 
designs. His mind and understanding have been likened to 
the laboratory in a vast palace, where all his readings and spec¬ 
ulations, the results of his experience and learning, were under¬ 
going analysis, and falling into the proportion of symmetrical 
grandeur. Within that palace, who looks may behold all in 
perfect order, peace, and consistent restfulness. We have said 
the youth who at twenty-three was Governor of Massachusetts, 
had arrived so early at the knowledge of and faith in the 
principles for which he contended throughout his life, and for 
which, in the very prime and fulness of manhood, he died a 
martyr’s death. This has not been sufficiently noticed. 
Hence, when from his retirement among the woods and towers 
of Raby he sent out his bold impeachment of Cromwell’s Gov¬ 
ernment, especially that piece called “A Healing Question,” 
in which he suggested the idea of a fundamental constitution, 
pleaded for what, no doubt, was regarded, and in fact was, a 
visionary form of organization, anticipating that which Wash¬ 
ington so many years after gave to America, we are not to see 
a mere restless agitator, but one who, having been second to no 
person in the nation, possessed of the means of princely rest, 
with tastes the highest and most cultivated, was ready to im¬ 
peril all for his dream. We have said both of the great men 
have our affectionate gratitude and admiration. We quite see 
how it was that while Cromwell was, no doubt, startled in 
Whitehall by the apparition of the “ Healing Question” from 
Raby, while the fame, the high services, the eminent rank and 
great genius of the writer might cast a shade over that royal 
face, a sadness over that noble heart, they did not permit him 
to hesitate. His old friend was instantly summoned before the 
Council. He made his appearance directly, and, having been 
briefly questioned concerning his authorship of the “ Healing 
Question,” and having refused to give a security in a bond of 
£5000 to do nothing to the prejudice of the present Govern¬ 
ment and Commonwealth, he was committed prisoner to Caris- 
brooke Castle, the chambers of which had been so recently 


240 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


tenanted by the deposed and discrowned king. Why, what else 
could Cromwell do ? That was no moment for playing off 
ethereal, fanciful pictures of phantom republics before the eyes 
of the nation. It may be all very well for Mr. Forster, and 
writers of that school, to whine and cant about the purity of 
Washington, the tyranny of the Usurper, and such kind of 
stuff. There go two facts to all this. Washington was, no 
doubt, very pure ; but he had a whole, united people with 
him. At the worst there were but two parties—those who 
were in secrecy with the English Government ; and the vast 
united mind of the people, one with themselves ! But Eng¬ 
land was torn into factions innumerable ; this is no moment to 
say how many. Numberless little coteries of hissing snakes 
and slippery eels were wriggling and twisting toward desired 
eminence. As we have said, Cromwell never was a republican 
—less so now than ever. Shouts of “ Usurper !” “ Tyrant !” 
“ Traitor !” “ Deceiver !” from other factions ; “ Detestable 
wretch !” “ Murderer !” were met by the calm lightning of 
that deep, clear gray eye. “ Very likely, gentlemen ; just as 
you please, about all such pleasant epithets. Meantime, dis¬ 
tinctly understand that I am here somehow or other. I have 
some notion that I have been put here by the Eternal God, 
who raiseth up and casteth down. Noble natures, you will 
please to understand that I am ruler here to save you from 
clammy eels or hissing snakes ; and you, Messieurs Eels and 
Snakes, put yourselves into the smallest compass, if you please, 
or, by that Eternal God that sent me, so much the worse for 
you !” The poor, dear Cromwell ! we can quite conceive that 
an infinite grief came over him as he sent his old friend to 
Carisbrooke. Again, we say, what else could he have done ? 
Vane would not promise allegiance, and Cromwell would stand 
no nonsense. Noble, royal creatures both ! The world would 
be a poor world without dreamy, visionary Vanes, forecasting 
by their faith and holiness and self-sacrifice the horoscope of 
future ages ; but we stand by Cromwell. There are moments 
in the histories of nations when the resolute hand of a states- 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 241 


man, not less strong than wise, not less sagacious than kind, is 
needed to repair the breaches, to strengthen the bulwarks, and 
even the rather to do the work of to-day than that of to-mor¬ 
row. Still, we are not eulogizing Cromwell now ; but we are 
not disposed to treat this diversity of the two great men as if 
either of them were inconsistent with himself. 

How long he continued a prisoner in Carisbrooke Castle no 
documents before us very distinctly specify. He certainly was 
there for such a period that he was able to follow the course of 
his meditations through several works, which found their way 
into print. From thence he published his treatise “ On the 
Love of God and Union with God and as just then Harring¬ 
ton published his famous “ Oceana,” Sir Harry wrote his 
“ Needful Corrective ; or, Balance in Popular Government.” 
The writings of Sir Harry Vane, like many of those of his 
illustrious contemporaries, lie now forgotten and unreprinted. 
That with which his name is especially connected is “ The 
Retired Man’s Meditations.” In the intolerant spirit of the 
age in which he lived, and in which he had so little part, this 
work was sometimes called “ a wicked book.” “ A piece of 
mystical divinity ;” Cotton Mather, in his “ Magnalia,” 
expresses himself thus of it, citing the opinions of no less a 
person than Dr. Manton. We must express wonder ourselves 
that it is not better known ; but it belongs to an order of books 
of that period very little studied. How many of our readers 
are acquainted with the writings of Peter Sterry, Cromwell’s 
chaplain ? His “ Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Children of 
God,” or his “ Freedom of the Will ?” How many are 
acquainted with Everard’s “ Gospel Treasury,” or with the 
“ Evangelical Essays” of George Sykes, Vane’s close and inti¬ 
mate friend and biographer ? It is to this order of books we 
must assign “ The Retired Man’s Meditations.” It seems, 
although its preface is dated from Belleau, to have been written 
at Raby, where he spent the first and most peaceful portion of 
his time after Cromwell’s assumption of power ; it was proba¬ 
bly, what its title purports, a retired man's meditations. We 


242 


OLIVER, CROMWELL. 


purpose in some few words to vindicate the book from Hume’s 
sneer of being “ absolutely unintelligible, without any trace of 
eloquence or common sense.” We do not believe Hume ever 
attempted to read the book. Hume’s method of writing his 
history and arriving at his conclusions is now very well known. 
Lord Clarendon, more bitter in his hatred of Vane, as is most 
natural, than Hume, after all his depreciating malignity, 
expressed the ground of the truth when he said, “ The subject- 
matter of Vane’s writing is of so delicate a nature that it 
requires another kind of preparation of mind, and, it may be, 
another kind of diet, than men are ordinarily supplied with.” 
No doubt the book is mystical ; few of the writers we prize of 
that period were not mystical. What more mystical than the 
“ Pilgrim’s Progress” ? We do not find the “ Retired Man’s 
Meditations” more mystical than “ The Saints’ Everlasting 
Rest.” Some years since, a very able and interesting paper 
appeared in the Westminster Review , suggesting some points of 
analogy between Vane and Bunyan. The testimony from such 
a quarter is most remarkable, and as just as it is remarkable. 

Cromwell died, as we know, on the anniversary day of his 
great battles of Worcester and Dunbar, September 3d, 1658. 
Richard Cromwell, as we also know, attempted that which, 
whatever might have been his personal excellence, was utterly 
impossible to his placid and unstatesmanlike genius—the gov¬ 
ernment of the country in the hour when every breaker and 
billow of the political ocean was beating upon its shores. Of 
course we are not in this place prepared to discuss at any length 
the causes of his memorable failure, only so far as the circum¬ 
stances are related to our subject. Vane, naturally, emerged 
instantly from his retirement, and became an object of terror, 
certainly of alarm, to the new Protector ; for Vane carried 
with him an amazing popularity and consideration with many 
great parties of the nation, especially of that strong but humble 
republican party, the members of which, now that the strong 
warrior-prince was dead, were mustering together from their 
country-seats and places of exile. Vane offered himself as a 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


243 


candidate for his old borough of Kingston-upon-Hull—for 
which place he, indeed, claimed to be considered as the lawful 
representative, as neither he nor his party acknowledged the 
dissolution of the Long Parliament, although compelled to sub¬ 
mit to it—and he was returned by a majority of votes, but the 
Cromwell party gave the certificate of his election to another. 
He then proceeded to Bristol, with exactly the same results. 
He then stood for Whitechurch, in Hampshire, and by his 
return for this really inconsiderable borough he was now able 
to occupy the place which the Cromwell party had so much 
dreaded in the House of Commons. This is the circumstance 
to which Baxter so ungenerously alludes when he speaks of him 
as “ the rejected of three boroughs, ” which, however, was not 
the case. As we read the story of that brief and mournful 
struggle, whatever admiration we may give to the magnanimity 
of Vane and his coadjutors, we are unable to spare much sym¬ 
pathy. We become impatient and exasperated while we 
behold these heroic and splendid strugglers, men of large 
capacity, of immense faith in their principles, pouring about 
their oratory, declamation, and invective ; spinning their clever 
tactics for displacing Richard Cromwell, and rearing their 
phantom republics, while the subtle Monk was hatching his 
schemes, and the dastardly Charles Stuart cracking his jokes 
over his intended feats of murder and treason. And for these 
brave spirits the wood was being prepared for the scaffold, and 
the headsmen sharpening their axes and preparing their ropes ! 
Oh, it is a mournful business—strange ! How different is the 
aspect of affairs to posterity than to the living actors in a great 
drama ! With Vane as their chief, wrought Algernon Sidney, 
and other such masculine and majestic men. If ever there 
existed men who seem to our minds to realize the colossal type 
of Roman, Coriolanus-like greatness, these were the men. 
They thought they were acting to prevent the vile Stuarts’ 
return ; we suppose of any party there now scarcely lives one 
who does not see that they took exactly the course to hasten it. 
The clear, ringing eloquence, especially of Sir Harry Vane, 


244 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


sounds like the mournful toll of English freedom ; high, great 
sentiments heave out in that instantaneous attack he organized 
upon the Government, and the right of Richard Cromwell, im¬ 
mediately on taking his seat in the House. He resisted the 
Government, especially from the fear that it would, by its 
weakness, accelerate the return of the king. Again and again 
he exclaims, “ Shall we be underbuilders to supreme Stuart? 
Shall we lay the foundation of a system that must bring a 
Charles the Second back to us, sooner or later ?” Much of his 
language has a scorn, a personal invective, of so bitter a kind, 
that we grieve to hear it from the lips of Vane. Here is a 
passage : 

“ Mr. Speaker : Among all the people of the universe, I 
know none who have shown so much zeal for the liberty for 
their country as the English at this time have done ; they have, 
by the help of Divine Providence, overcome all obstacles, and 
have made themselves free. We have driven away the heredi¬ 
tary tyranny of the House of Stuart, at the expense of much 
blood and treasure, in hopes of enjoying hereditary liberty, 
after shaking off the yoke of kingship ; and there is not a man 
among us who could have imagined that any person would be 
so bold as to dare to attempt the ravishing from us that free¬ 
dom, which cost us so much blood and so much labor. But so 
it happens, I know not by what misfortune, we are fallen into 
the error of those who poisoned the Emperor Titus to make 
room for Domitian, who made away with Augustus that they 
might have Tiberius, and changed Claudius for Nero. I am 
sensible these examples are foreign from my subject, since the 
Romans in those days were buried in lewdness and luxury ; 
whereas the people of England are renowned, all over the 
world, for their great virtue and discipline, and yet suffer an 
idiot without courage, without sense, nay, without ambition, to 
have dominion in a country of liberty ! One could bear a little 
with Oliver Cromwell, though, contrary to his oath of fidelity 
to the Parliament, contrary to his duty to the public, contrary 
to the respect he owed that venerable body from whom he 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


245 


received his authority, he usurped the Government. His merit 
was so extraordinary that our judgments, our passions, might 
be blinded by it. He made his way to empire by the most 
illustrious actions ; he had under his command an army that 
had made him a conqueror, and a people that had made him 
their general. But as for Richard Cromwell, his son, who is 
he ?—what are his titles ? We have seen that he had a sword 
by his side ; but did he ever draw it ? And what is of more 
importance in this case, is he fit to get obedience from a 
mighty nation, who could never make a footman obey him ? 
Yet we must recognize this man as our king, under the style of 
Protector ! — a man without birth, without courage, without 
conduct. For my part, I declare, sir, it shall never be said 
that I made that man my master. ’’ 

Well, words like these drove the naturally quiet man to his 
obscurity at Cheshunt. He abdicated, and never appeared in 
public again. And now rapidly hastened the movement of 
Monk, for in the brief period which remained in the inextrica¬ 
ble coil of affairs, Yane became President of the Council of the 
nation ; but Monk held the army, and the glorious moments of 
English freedom and justice were drawing to a close. Charles 
returned ; an immense and most gracious indemnity was pro¬ 
cured to all. Yane had taken no part in the trial and execu¬ 
tion of Charles I., and when the king returned, he continued in 
his house at Hampstead ; but he was one of the very first made 
to translate the king’s sense of his promised Act of Indemnity ; 
he was arrested in July, 1660, and flung into the Tower. 
There can be no doubt that Clarendon and Charles had deter¬ 
mined on his murder from the very first. From many consid¬ 
erations he was, probably, the strongest man in England ; it 
was a very difficult thing to find grounds for an indictment, and 
for two years he continued in prison. He was removed from 
the Tower to a lonely castle in one of the Scilly Isles. There, 
utterly severed from all communication with his family, or any 
of his great comrades, he was consigned, only to hear the 
winds raving round the turrets of his prison, or the moaning 


246 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


sea dashing at its base. In such states this great man seems to 
shine out with more dignity and beauty. What were his 
thoughts there, what his consolations or occupations, we have 
no means of very well knowing, excepting by the result, when 
those great traitors to English freedom, having procured a more 
supple Parliament, and having manipulated and manoeuvred, 
with ingenious dexterity, their determination upon his life, 
recalled him to London. Meantime, his friends were in the 
grave or in exile ; their bodies, like his, were immured in dun¬ 
geons, or the scaffold had drunk their blood. A letter to his 
wife, too long to quote, furnishes proof of the fine texture of 
his character, reveals his own resolution, and in subtle and 
concealed hints, his assurance that he would soon be called to 
die. Some of his purest thoughts also occur in his paper, 
entitled “ Meditations on Death.” He was nerving himself 
for the inevitable end. Such passages as the following show 
this : 

His Meditation in Prison on Death. 

“ Death is the inevitable law God and nature have put upon 
us. Things certain should not be feared. Death, instead of 
taking away anything from us, gives us all, even the perfection 
of our natures ; sets us at liberty both from our own bodily 
desires and others’ domination ; makest the servant free from his 
master. It doth not bring us into darkness, but takes darkness 
out of us, us out of darkness, and puts us into marvellous light. 
Nothing perishes or is dissolved by death but the veil and 
covering which is wont to be done away from all ripe fruit. 
It brings us out of a dark dungeon, through the crannies * 

« 

* It is impossible not to remember Waller’s most charming lines, 
which seem an almost literal translation into verse of these words 
and sentiments of Vane : 

“ The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed, 

Lets in new light through chinks which time has made ; 

Stronger by weakness, wiser we become, 

As we draw near to our eternal home,” 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 247 


whereof our sight of light is hut weak and small, and brings us 
into an open liberty, and estate of light and life, unveiled and 
perpetual. It takes us out of that mortality which began in 
the womb of our mother, and now ends to bring us into that 
life which shall never end. This day, which thou fearest as 
thy last, is thy birthday into eternity. 

“ Death holds a high place in the policy and great common¬ 
wealth of the world. It is very profitable for the succession 
and continuance of the works of nature. ” 

Again : 

“ It is most just, reasonable, and desirable, to arrive at that 
place toward which we are always walking. Why fearest thou 
to go whither all the world goes ? It is the part of a valiant 
and generous mind, to prefer some things before life, as things 
for which a man should not doubt nor fear to die. In such a 
case, however matters go, a man must more account thereof 
than of his life. He must run his race with resolution, that he 
may perform things profitable and exemplary.” 

Thus the nobler English Seneca consoled and strengthened 
himself : 

“ There is a time to live and a time to die. A good death 
is far better and more eligible than an ill life. A wise man 
lives but so long as his life is more worth than his death. The 
longer life is not always the better. To what end serves a long 
life ? Simply to live, breathe, eat, drink, and see this world. 
What needs so long a time for all this ? Methinks we should 
soon be tired with the daily repetition of these and the like 
vanities. Would we live long to gain knowledge, experience, 
and virtue ? This seems an honest design, but is better to be 
had other ways by good men, when their bodies are in the 
grave. ’ ’ 

Again : 

“ It is a great point of wisdom to know the right hour and 
fit season to die. Many men have survived their own glory. 
That is the best death which is well recollected in itself, quiet, 
solitary, and attendeth wholly to what at that time is fittest. 


248 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


“ They that live by faith die daily. The life which faith 
teaches works death. It leads up the mind to things not seen, 
which are eternal, and takes it off, with its affections and 
desires, from things seen, which are temporary.” 

We pass over his pathetic, high-toned, and beautiful letter 
to his wife. We notice, however, such passages as the fol¬ 
lowing : 

“ Have faith and hope, my dearest. God’s arm is not 
shortened ; doubtless great and precious promises are yet in 
store to be accomplished in and upon believers here on earth, 
to the making of Christ admired in them. And if we cannot 
live in the power and actual possession of them, yet if we die 
in the foresight and embracing of them by faith, it will be our 
great blessing. This dark night and black shade which God 
hath drawn over His work in the midst of us, may be, for 
aught we know, the ground-color to some beautiful piece that 
He is now exposing to the light. 

“And why should such a taking up sanctuary in God, and 
desiring to continue a pilgrim and solitary in this world, while 
I am in it, afford still matter of jealousy, distrust, and rage, as 
I see it doth to those who are unwilling that I should be buried 
and lie quiet in my grave where I now am. They that press 
so earnestly to carry on my trial do little know what presence 
of God may be afforded me in, and issue out of it, to the 
magnifying of Christ in my body, by life or by death. Nor 
can they, I am sure, imagine how much I desire to be dis¬ 
solved and to be with Christ, which of all things that can 
befall me I account best of all. And till then, I desire to be 
made faithful in my place and station, to make confession of 
Him before men, and not deny His name, if called forth to 
give a public testimony and witness concerning Him, and to be 
herein nothing terrified.” 

He was removed from Scilly to the Tower of London, about 
March, 1662, and he was brought before the Court of King’s 
Bench on the 2d of June, 1662, The indictment, which he 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


249 


was not permitted to see before it was read, nor permitted to 
have a copy of afterward, charged him with compassing and 
imagining the death of Charles II., and conspiring to subvert 
the ancient frame of the king by government of the realm. 
Even for that heinous year, when law was a mockery, the 
grounds of the indictment of Sir Harry Vane are marvellous 
in their wickedness. Will it be believed now, by ordinary 
readers, that one of the first items of the impeachment was that 
which we have designated as his illustrious and majestic de¬ 
fence of the English seas ; sweeping the waves of our narrow 
Channel free of Van Tromp, with his broom at the masthead. 
This report of “an estimate of the number of ships for the 
summer guard of the narrow seas a “ levy of £ 20,000 on 
South Wales for the fitting out this fleet,” which was “ to be 
paid to Sir Harry Vane, as Treasurer of the Navy warrants 
for the production of firelocks and drums ; warrants for the 
commission of officers of the army, bearing his authority ; 
warrants for delivering arms and barrels of powder to regi¬ 
ments. Such were the items of this memorable indictment. 
Perhaps the more serious, although hypothetical, was the fol¬ 
lowing : 

“ Then one Marsh was produced a witness, who proves that 
Sir Henry Vane proposed the new model of Government, 
Whitlock being in the chair, in these particulars : 

“ 1 . That the supreme power, delegated by the people to 
their trustees, ought to be in some fundamentals not dispensed 
with. 

“ 2 . That it is destruction to the people’s liberties (to 
which by God’s blessing they are restored) to admit any earthly 
king or single person to the legislative or executive power over 
the nation. 

“ 3 . That the supreme power delegated is not entrusted to 
the people’s trustees, to erect matters of Faith or Worship, so 
as to exercise compulsion therein.” 

“ Thomas Pury proves that he was at the debating of the 
two last of these propositions, and believes they were proposed 


250 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


to the Chairman Whitlock by Sir Henry Vane ; but affirms 
confidently that Sir Henry Vane gave reasons to maintain 
them.” 

Of course, the argument with reference to the navy pro¬ 
ceeded upon the principle that to sustain the army and navy 
was to keep the king out of his possession. The trial was a 
nefarious business. Ludlow somewhere remarks in his inter¬ 
esting life, that upon his trial, Sir Harry Vane pleaded rather 
for the life and liberties of his country than for his own ; he 
addressed himself to his task in a spirit of royal cheerfulness, 
and with overwhelming tact and eloquence set aside the validity 
of the charges. His convincing charges took from his prose¬ 
cutors the power of reply, and the Chief Justice, Forster, was 
heard to say : “ Though we know not what to say to him, we 
know what to do to him.” After Vane’s closing defence, the 
Solicitor-General, in a speech of singular execrable brutality, 
declared to the jury, that “ the prisoner must be made a public 
sacrifice,” and, in reply to Vane’s protest that he had not been 
permitted to have the benefit of counsel, the same worthy 
asked, “ What counsel did the prisoner think would, or durst 
speak for him, in such a manifest case of treason, unless he 
could call down the heads of his fellow-traitors from Westmin¬ 
ster Hall.” The Solicitor-General was even permitted to 
whisper to all the members of the jury as they left the box. 
They deliberated half an hour, and returned a verdict of 
“Guilty.” There had been some foolish expectation that, 
even then, his life might be saved ; but Charles and Clarendon 
were even nervously anxious for his murder. Mr. Forster pro¬ 
duces the following letter from Charles to Clarendon, the day 
after his trial, and before his sentence : 

“ The relation that has been made to me of Sir Henry 
Vane’s carriage yesterday in the hall, is the occasion of this 
letter, which, if I am rightly informed, was so insolent as to 
justify all he had done, acknowledging no supreme power in 
England but a Parliament, and many things to that purpose. 

Y ou have had a true account of all : and if he has given new 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANT. 


251 


occasion to be hanged, certainly he is too dangerous a man to 
let live, if we can honestly put him out of the way. Think of 
this, and give me some account of it to-morrow, till then I 
have no more to say to you.—C. R.” 

Called up for his sentence, there were circumstances of con¬ 
siderable excitement in the court. He submitted, for instance, 
first, “ Whether Parliament were accountable to any inferior 
Court.” Second, “Whether the king, being out of posses¬ 
sion—” here the Court broke in upon him with great vehe¬ 
mence, declaring, “the king never was out of possession.” 
With exceeding coolness he replied, that “ the indictment 
against him, then, must inevitably fall to the ground, for the 
one charge alleged against him was that he endeavored to keep 
out His Majesty.” It was unanswerable. The excitement 
became intense ; in the midst of it he desisted from all further 
attempts, folded up his papers, solemnly appealed from the 
tribunal to the judgment of God, reminding the judges that 
before that judgment they would all at last be brought, and 
expressed his willingness to die for his testimony. Abusive 
Serjeant Keeling broke in here, “ So you may, sir, in good 
time, by the grace of God.” This was he who, in a previous 
hour of the trial, when Vane was reading a passage from a 
volume of the Statutes, desiring to look at it, attempted to 
snatch it rudely from his hands Vane withheld and closed 
the volume, exclaiming, “ When I employ you as my counsel, 
sir, I will find you books.” He was sentenced to execution 
on Tower Hill. English lawyers have, since then, pronounced 
the sentence “ infamous.” Even Justice Forster, who tried 
him, is quoted by Mr. Forster as, by implication, in his 
apology condemning the verdict. The case only stands on 
record as a selection of the most marked and conspicuous man 
in the nation as the subject of royal revenge. He was con¬ 
demned on Wednesday ; he was to die on Saturday. 

A little volume before us, from which we have already 
quoted, contains many of his occasional speeches ; they ought 
to be better known. Sometimes, in his speeches in the House 


252 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


of Commons, we have thought we detected the marks of irrita¬ 
tion and petulance. But there are no such indications in these 
words ; a calm, seraphic glow pervades them all, a full assur¬ 
ance of faith, a hope of glory. He does not condescend to 
indulge in any remarks, even upon either his adversaries or his 
unpropitious trial ; there seems only, if that may be said, too 
great a desire to depart and to have done with it all. The 
prayer with his wife and children and some of his friends the 
night before his execution, which his friend Sykes has pre¬ 
served, is a wonderful rapture of elevated and sustained and 
earnest devotion. It is full of pithy pieces ; especially he 
prays, “ Let thy servant see death shrink under him ; what a 
glorious sight will this be, in the presence of many witnesses, 
to have death shrink under him, which he acknowledged to be 
only by the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, whom 
the bands of death could not hold down ; let that spirit enter 
into us that will set us again upon our feet.” He adores God 
the Father because, “ Thou art rending this veil and bringing 
us to a mountain that abides firm.” He prayed for his 
family : 

“ Prosper and relieve that poor handful that are in prisons 
and bonds, that they may be raised up and trample death 
under foot. Let my poor family that is -left desolate, let my 
dear wife and children be taken into Thy care, be Thou a hus¬ 
band, father, and master to them. Let the spirits of those 
that love me be drawn out towards them. Let a blessing be 
upon these friends that are here at this time, strengthen them, 
let them find love and grace in thine eyes, and be increased 
with the increasings of God. Show Thyself a loving Father to 
us all, and do for us abundantly, above and beyond all we can 
ask or think, for Jesus Christ’s sake.” Amen. 

After this, at about midnight, came the warrant for his 
execution the following day ; the next morning he said there 
was “ no dismalness in it after the receipt of the warrant ; I 
slept four hours so soundly, that the Lord hath made it suffi¬ 
cient for me, and now I am going to sleep my last, after whic 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES : SIR HARRY VANE. 


253 


I shall need to sleep no more.” He seems to have met his 
wife and children again that day early in the forenoon, and 
parting with them, said, “ There is some flesh remaining yet, 
hut I must cast it behind me, and press forward to my 
father.” The sheriff came to him and said he could not bo 
ready for half an hour yet. “ Then, sir,” said Sir Harry, “ it 
rests with you, for I have been ready this half-hour.” It was 
thought at first that he would have to walk to execution ; the 
sledge had not arrived ; at length it came, and he said, “ Any 
way, how they please ; I long to be at home, to be dissolved, 
and to be with Christ, which is best of all.” He went down¬ 
stairs from his chamber and seated himself in the sledge, his 
friends and servants standing by him, and Sykes accompanying 
him to the close. As they passed along, it was like a royal 
procession ; shouts and gestures were made to him ; the tops 
of the houses were crowded, and all the windows thronged ; 
even the prisoners of the Tow ? er, as he passed along, and the 
thronging multitudes by his side, and the people looking down 
on the procession, exclaimed, “ The Lord go with you ; the 
great God of heaven and earth appear in you and for you. ’ * 
As he came within the rails of the scaffold, the pathetic voices 
of the people greeted him with like acclamations, crying out, 
“ The Lord Jesus be with thy dear soul !” One voice shouted 
to him, “ That is the most glorious seat you ever sat on !” 
“ It is so, indeed,” he replied in a cheerful voice. When he 
appeared in front of the scaffold, in his black suit and cloak, 
with scarlet silk waistcoat, the victorious color, many supposed 
he was some person connected officially with the execution, or 
some looker on. They were amazed to find in that great and 
noble presence the prisoner who w r as to die. “ How cheerful 
he is !” said some ; “ He does not look like a dying man !” 
said others ; with other such astonishing speeches. The scene 
at his execution was, on the part of the Government, disgrace¬ 
ful. Yane was calm enough to attempt to-address the multi¬ 
tude coherently ; he had promised to say nothing reflecting on 
the king or Government- nor does it seem that he attempted to 


254 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


do so. He was hustled, his papers snatched from his hands, 
taken from his pocket ; even then, in the midst of all, he pre¬ 
served a serene and composed demeanor. When he attempted 
to speak, the trumpets sounded to drown his voice. Enthusi¬ 
asm wept for him, while it admired him ! At last he turned 
aside, exclaiming, “It is a bad cause which cannot hear the 
words of a dying man.” He seems to have been permitted to 
pray a little in peace ; such sentences as the following fell from 
him, recorded by Sykes : “ Bring us, O Lord, into the true 
mystical Sabbath, that we may cease from our works, rest from 
our labors, and become a meet habitation for Thy Spirit,” 
etc., etc. His last words were, “ Father, glorify Thy servant 
in the sight of men, that he may glorify Thee in the discharge 
of his duty to Thee and to his country.” Thereupon he 
stretched out his arms ; in an instant, swift fell the stroke, and 
the head of one of the greatest and purest beings that ever 
adorned our world, rolled on the scaffold ! Old Pepys was 
there, and in his book he tells us how he had a room on Tower 
Hill, that he might see the whole affair. He testifies—and he 
was in a Government office at the time, as we know—that 
“ Vane changed not his color nor spirit to the last ; spoke very 
confidently of his being presently at the right hand of Christ, 
and in all things appeared the most resolved man that ever 
died in that manner ; and showed more of heat than coward¬ 
ice, but yet, withal, humility and gravity.” And the testi¬ 
mony from an imbecile time-server, like Pepys, has a little 
measure of historic worth in it. 

So Sir Harry went away in his chariot to heaven, and Pepys 
tells us how he “ went away to dinner” ! A day or two after, 
he tells us how “ the talk was that Sir Harry Vane must be 
gone to heaven, and that the king had lost more by that man’s 
death than he will gain again a good while.” Sykes beauti¬ 
fully and pathetically says, “ Cromwell’s victories are swal¬ 
lowed up of death ; Vane has swallowed up death itself in vic¬ 
tory. He let fall his mantle, left his body behind him, that he 
had worn for nine-and-forty years, and has gone to keep his 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES * SIR HARRY TAKE. 


255 


everlasting jubilee in God’s everlasting rest. It is all day with 
him now, no night nor sorrow more, no prison, nor death !” 
Burnet testifies, and Pepys also implies it, that his death made 
the foundations of the throne thrill, and almost shook it from 
its steadfastness. 

The publishing of the little pamphlet of his trial, which was 
extensively circulated, and his most remarkable biography by 
Sykes, set him a-talking, in a wonderful manner, in men’s 
consciences, after his death. February 11th, 1663, Pepys 
testifies : “ At night my wife read Sir II. Vane’s trial to me, 
and I find it a very excellent thing, worth reading, and him to 
have been a very wise man.’’ Also Vane’s pamphlets, his 
“ Healing Question,” his “ Balance of Government,” and the 
others, were being read in private meetings ; and his spirit was 
at work, although his body was in the tomb. He was be¬ 
headed, but we may believe that the memory of his execution, 
joined to the recollection of his singularly noble and pure 
career, did something toward sweeping finally, and forever, the 
execrable, execrated, and detested Stuarts from the throne. 
Clarendon makes it an article against Vane, that he was “ a 
man independent of all parties ;” and it is for this reason, 
since his death Vane has received far less justice, both at the 
hands of his contemporaries and posterity, than most of the 
great characters of that illustrious period of our history. 
Although he was of the Nonconformists, he was too broad and 
too high in his views to give them much satisfaction. If he 
opposed the bishops and forfeited their favor, he would not 
persecute Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, and he sacrificed the favor of 
the sectaries ; religiously, while we have indicated the frequent 
mysticism of his views, he was immeasurably in advance of his 
age. We love Richard Baxter, but his account of Vane is 
singularly characteristic of the frequent narrowness, and half 
malignant querulousness of the dear old father. As Vane was 
before his age in religion—a matter very greatly to himself— 
so also he was before his age in politics. We admire and 
reverence him, but for the interests of peace and for the well- 


256 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


ordering of the State we are compelled to side with Cromwell. 
But Vane’s life is, altogether, one that does one good to read 
or to compile. There was not a shred nor thread of littleness 
in any part of his character ; its only fault is its lofty ideality. 
Not one of his numerous assailants or adversaries has ever been 
able, by a breath, to touch or tarnish the pure mirror of that 
excellence. The only possible, doubtful circumstance, is the 
possession of that paper from the velvet case, which became 
evidence leading to the death of Strafford. We think it can¬ 
not be doubtful what any of our readers, in such a case, would 
have done ; a movement of Providence seemed to guide his 
hands to that fatal case, .^nd once possessed of its information, 
how could he do otherwise than reveal it to his country ? 
Altogether, the whole character of Sir Harry Vane stands in its 
lucid and transparent satisfactoriness by the side of the few 
most really elevated men of the time. He represents, in full- 
orbed completeness, those principles in living embodiment 
which adorn the political pages of Milton, which shine also in 
the career of Marvell. He had the political righteousness 
which makes Pym and Hampden so venerable ; while he seems 
to have combined, in a rare manner, that patient Biblical 
research, that life of devout thought and inquisition, which 
flames over the pages of Howe ; the rarity of his character 
being, that beyond almost any other mighty politician to whom 
we can refer, he united the attributes of action, which made 
him powerful in Whitehall, with the attributes of contempla¬ 
tion, which, as they solaced his own spirit among the woods of 
Raby, the retirement of Belleau, or the dungeons of Scilly, 
prove even now attractive to those who begin to peruse his 
little known but animating pages.* 


. * bones of \ ane seem to have been stirring lately in resurrec¬ 
tion ; two or three papers, in addition to the brief memoir by John 
Forster, have appeared within the last three or four years. It is 
necessary, therefore, that the present writer should say that the 
paper upon Vane which closes this volume was substantially pub- 


HIS CONTEMPORARIES: SIR HARRY VANE. 257 

As, in the earlier pages of the present volume, the writer 
placed among the contemporaries of Cromwell the great Herald 
of the Revolution, Sir John Eliot, as illustrating the work 
which had to be done, and which needed Cromwell as the 
strong Knight-Commander and General in the conflict and on 
the field, so he closes the volume with this account of Crom¬ 
well’s greatest contemporary, in whose death we behold the 
departure of the great prophet of the time. We have seen 
that the fine, pure, mystical, and abstract spirit of Vane quite 
vindicates and authenticates Cromwell’s impatient ejaculation. 
The country eminently needed a strong, martial hand ; and to 
what the policy of Vane would have conducted we see in what 
it came to at last. It built his own scaffold as well as the 
scaffold of all the great leaders of the party ; and that Long 
Parliament, which in its earliest days presents us with one of 
the grandest chapters of parliamentary glory, in its latest days 
only compels us to a feeling of execration for what it effected 
in bringing back the detested Stuart. And this, but for Crom¬ 
well, Vane and the party with whom he worked would have 
effected earlier ; and Cromwell—if it be possible to think that 

such a restoration could have taken effect while he lived_ 

would have lost his head, as well as Vane. As Cromwell’s 
career shows us distinctly what the great Protector did, so do 
the closing years of Vane’s life show what that great Protector 
averted. 

lished by him about ten years since in the English Eclectic Review, 
of which he was then editor. But the memory of this great man 
still waits for an adequate biography, and the gathering up and re 
printing of his various pieces. 






APPENDIX. 


[The following Ballads are selected from “Lays and Legends of 
Puritan Heroes,” by the author of the present biography, privately 
printed but not published some years since : their insertion in this 
place may not seem inappropriate.] 


X. 

The Farmer op St. Ives. 


n. 

The Battle op Dunbar. 


m. 

The Martyrdom op Vane. 


THE FARMER OF ST. IYES. 

SUGGESTED BT THE PROPOSAL. TO ERECT A MONUMENT TO THE FARMER*# 

MEMORY. 

“ In the care of the St. Ives Farm he now not only sought employ¬ 
ment for some portion of the ill-subdued energy which always 
craved in him for action, but also put to the proof the value of those 
thoughts we have attributed to him after the disastrous Dissolution 
of 1628. In the tenants that rented from him, in the laborer that 
took service under him, he sought to sow the seeds of his after¬ 
troop of Ironsides. He achieved an influence through the neigh¬ 
borhood all round him, unequalled for piety and self-denying virtue. 
The greater part of his time, even upon his farm, was passed in de¬ 
votional exercises, expositions, and prayer. Who prays best will 
work best ; who preaches best will fight best. All the famous doc¬ 
trines of his later and more celebrated years were tried and tested on 
the little Farm of St. Ives.” — Forster's Lives of the Statesmen of the 
Commonwealth. “The shadow of Cromwell’s name overawed the 
most confident and haughty. He intimidated Holland, he humili¬ 
ated Spain, and he twisted the supple Mazarin, the ruler of France, 
about his finger. No agent of equal potency and equal moderation 
had appeared upon earth before. He walked into a den of lions, 
and scourged them, growling, out ; Bonaparte was pushed in a me¬ 
nagerie of monkeys, and fainted at their grimaces .”—Walter Savage 
Landor. 

Raise up, raise up, the pillar! some grand old granite stone, 

To the king without a sceptre, to the prince without a throne ! 

To the brave old English hero who broke our feudal gyves, 

To the leader of the “good old cause,” the Farmer of St. Ives. 

The old Plantagenets brought us chains; the Tudors frowns and scars; 
The Stuarts brought us lives of shame ; the Hanoverian wars ; 

But this brave man, with his strong arm, brought freedom to our 
lives — 

The best of Princes England had was the Farmer of St. Ives. 

Oh, holy, happy homestead, there where the Farmer dwelt! 

Around his hearth, around his board, the wearied laborers knelt ; 
Not there the jest, the curse, the song,—in prayer each spirit bides, 
Till forth they came, a glorious throng, the brave old Ironsides. 


262 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Walk proudly past these hedges, for this is holy ground ; 

Amidst these lowly villages were England’s bravest found ; 

With praying hearts and truthful, they left their homes and wives, 
And ranged, for freedom’s cause, around the Farmer of St. Ives. 

Hark ! England feels his tramping, our own Achilles comes ; 

His Watchword, “ God is with us !” it thunders through our homes. 
High o’er the raging tumult, hark ! ’tis the Farmer’s cry,— 

‘ * Fear not, but put your trust in God, and keep your Powder 
dry.” 

Ho ! Marston, ’neath the moonlight, thy thousands owned his power. 
Ho ! Naseby ! there the sceptre fell from out the monarch’s power. 
Ho ! Preston ! Dunbar ! Worcester ! Lo, there his spirit strives,— 
Hurrah ! the tyrants fly before the Farmer of St. Ives. 

On many a Norman turret stern blows the hero dealt, 

And many an old Cathedral nave his echoing footsteps felt : 

In many a lonely mansion the legend still survives, 

How prayers and blows pell mell came down from the Farmer of St. Ives. 

He wrapped the purple round him, he sat in chair of state, 

And think ye was not this man King? The whole world name him 
Great! 

The wary fox of Italy, and Bourbon’s sensual slave, 

And the old bluff Dutchman, owned the power of England’s bold 
and brave. 

He was the true defender of Freedom and of Faith ; 

When through the Vaudois valleys brave martyrs died the death ; 

He threw his banner o’er their homes and wrapt in it their lives ; 
And the Alpine summits sung the praise of the Farmer of St. Ives. 

His was the wizard power ; he held it not in vain ; 

He broke the tyrant’s iron rule and lashed them with their chain. 

Oh ! the shade of earth’s great heroes, in all their pomp look dim, 
When rose in Whitehall's Palaces our great Protector’s hymn. 

He died ! the good old monarch died ! Then to the land returned 
The cruel, crowned, reptile thing, that men and angels spurned ; 

He seized the bones as reptiles seize upon the buried dead, 

And a fiend’s malice wrecked upon that venerable head.* 

* This act has been well described as one of barbarous malignity ; and it is well 
known to have originated with the restored Monarch. It may be interesting to 
read the following from the Gesta Brittanorum , at the end of “Wharton’s Alma- 



APPENDIX. 


263 


And England, while from age to age fresh freedom she achieved, 
Forgot the hand that wrote the page in which her heart believed ; 
From age to age earth held his dust, a life like other lives, 

Lo, you ! at length he breathes again, this Farmer of St. Ives. 

His name shall 'burn —no meteor, no comet hurrying by— 

It shall return to light our world to future liberty. 

Let tyrants dare to trample hearts and liberties and lives ; 

One name shall bid them tremble yet—The Farmer of St. Ives. 

Unfurl that drooping banner ! So ! let it float again ; 

Ye winds receive it in your clasp ! waft it, thou surging main ! 

His watchword, “ God is with us!” see ye it still survives ; 

The pulse of England beats like his—The Farmer of St. Ives. 

Raise up, raise up, the pillar ! some grand old granite stone, 

To the prince without a sceptre, to the king without a throne ! 

To the brave old English hero who broke our feudal gyves, 

To the leader of the “ good old cause,” the Farmer of St. Ives. 

Written in Ramsey Churchyard, 

Huntingdonshire, 1848. 


nac ” for 1663: “ January 30, O.S. The odious carcasses of O. Cromwell, H. Ireton, 
and J. Bradshaw, were drawn upon sledges to Tyburn, and being pulled out of 
their coffins, then hanged at the several angles of that triple tree until sunset; 
then taken down, and their loathsome trunks thrown into a deep hole under the 
gallows. The heads were afterwards set upon poles on the top of Westminster 
Hall.” The following is the mason’s receipt for taking up the bodies, as copied 
from the original by Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, Secretary of the Royal Society : 
“ May the 4th day, 1661. Reed, then in full, of the Worshipful Sergeant Norfolk, 
fiveteen shillings for taking up the corpses of Cromwell, and Ireton, and Bradshaw. 
Reed, by mee, John Lewis.” 


THE BATTLE OF DUNBAR. 


(AS KECITED BY ONE OF THE PURITAN ARMY, 1686.) 

Come, gather round this winter hearth, and I will tell a tale 
Shall make the coldest heart beat high, and • blanch the tyrant pale ; 
Shall bid all true hearts to be strong, since truth can never fail, 

And warn the oppressor that his hour comes floating on the gale. 

I’ll tell you how, at freedom’s call, arose the blast of war,— 

I’ll tell you how our Cromwell fought and conquered at Dunbar. 

The Scots they sought to conquer us, tho’ we had lent them aid 
To rend the hated cassock off from their own mountain plaid : 

They sought to gird our land within the Presbytery’s shade, 

And so, to crown Charles Stuart King, they led their Highland raid— 
To crush our faith the Highland clans came flocking near and far, 
And we were there to conquer them, or perish, at Dunbar. 

Each English heart that day beat high, with hope and courage 
rare— 

Such hope may England ever have, to make her foes despair. 

Yet heavy was the cannon’s roll and stern the trumpet’s blare ; 

It was not fear, but faith to death—/ know, for I was there. 

This arm on many a foeman laid the bloody brand of war, 

When our Protector, Cromwell, fought and conquered at Dunbar. 

Like sheep for slaughter there we lay ; alas ! what power had we ? 
Behind us stretched, all drear and grim, the dread and awful sea ; 
And there the hosts of Leslie lay,—we could not fight nor flee ; 

We only knew the Lord of Hosts would our deliverer be. 

We held His promise to our hearts, like good news from afar, 

He saved on Marston’s bloody field, and why not at Dunbar ? 

Then came the night—and such a night! The mists fell cold and 
chill, 

The solemn tones of brooding winds were speaking on the hill. 

The hum of those two mighty hosts made stillness yet more still, 
And girt with mailed bands the strength of every iron will. 

I looked o’er all the cloudy heavens, but could not see a star. 

As there we lay, beneath the shades and crags of old Dunbar. 



APPENDIX. 


265 


It was a night for daring deeds ! dark clouds, and wind, and rain ; 
The full moon faintly touched the clouds, then veil’d her face again ; 
The sea moaned hoarse, but audibly—’twas like a soul in pain ; 

And phantom sounds and phantom sights were scudding o’er the 
plain. 

I looked o’er all the cloudy heavens—I could not see a star, 

Nor light, save where a flickering torch shone o’er thy fields, Dunbar. 

We knew to-morrow’s sun would shine upon a bloody field ; 

We could not hope that we could make those haughty thousands 
yield; 

We could but throw for our dear land our bodies as a shield, 

And charter with our faith and blood the faith our fathers sealed. 

If conquest fled afar from us, in this last gasp of war, 

We’d leave our bones to bleach for faith and freedom at Dunbar. 

The stertorous hum of drowsy life rose upward through the calm, 
And midst it rose from out the ranks some soldier’s pious psalm ; 
And some, to quell their care, would list the preacher’s loud alarm. 
Or muse if they that day might change the hauberk for the palm. 
Thus mount the fiery chariot, from the red smoke of war, 

And pass to take the crown of joy, from'thy dread field, Dunbar. 

I could not sleep—I could not watch ; I passed the night alone. 

I mused—I could not sing, nor preach, nor bide the preacher’s 
tone. 

Eternity seemed crowded there—things present, future, gone ! 

And dark and light, each sat by turns upon my spirit’s throne. 

I knew by many a well-fought field the doom and dread of war, 

But never doom or doubt so deep as that of old Dunbar. 

We thought of many a holy text and promise made of old,— 

Of Daniel in the lions’ den (a sheep within the fold) : 

And how for Israel’s tribes the waves to walls of safety roll’d, 

When they, like us, were hemmed and girt by foemen fierce and bold. 
We held that story to our hearts, like good news from afar ; 

The Lord would rise in might for us and conquer at Dunbar. 

We thought of him,—the captain strong, the mighty Jerubbaal, 

Who met the Midianitish host with numbers small and frail,— 

And while our lesser numbers lay along the misty vale, 

We pray’d that Gideon’s sword and Lord would o’er our foes prevail. 
And while the moon roll’d murkily above thy fields, Dunbar, 

We thought of Him who rode above, old Israel’s awful Fah l 


266 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


For me—old Gideon haunted me !—I saw his gleaming sword,— 

I heard the shout, I heard the cry, I felt the Spirit’s word. 

I heard the falling pitchers break, with one distinct accord ; 

I felt my own weak heart upheld by good news from the Lord ; 

“ Thou canst not fail in this dread hour,” said I, “ O Lord of War! 
Oh nerve our Gideon’s 1 arm to strike and conquer at Dunbar !” 

Should we so false or fickle prove, or do so mean a thing 
As hail “the young man Charles” to be our own/anointed king ; 

To bow the knee to those proud Scots when they their Prince should 
bring, 

His lecherous, craven, coward glance along our land to fling ; 

And we to sink to faithlessness, or bide the blast of war,— 

Said I, No ! let us rot to death beneath thy cliffs, Dunbar. 

A tramp—a step—and then a voice : “ Ha ! Captain, who goes there? 

Why these, methinks, are precious hours to spend in words of 
prayer.” 

Said I, “ Lone hearts may catch the spark which numbers have to 
share.” 

“ ’Tis well,” said he, and grasped my hand—oh, honor high and rare ! 
It was the Gideon of our hosts, who led our ranks to war,— 

Our mighty Cromwell on his rounds the night before Dunbar. 
****** 

Hark ! was not that the bugle’s blast ? I grasped a comrade’s hand ; 
AgaiD that wild, swift, piercing scream—it swept along the strand ; 

It fell like lightning in the midst of Leslie’s mighty band,— 

And where with us the heart lay cold the breath of faith was fanned ; 
It was the blast that summoned us to dare the blaze of war 
And wave aloft a bloody sword, high o’er thy field, Dunbar. 

Shout answered shout! blast answered blast ! amidst the twilight dim, 
The dark gray curtain of the dawn hung bodingly and grim ; 

Midst hailing shot and dying screams arose the sacred hymn. 

My memory holds them—I was there—else all my senses swim ; 

But pride will pant within my heart, the pride and pomp of war, 
Whene’er I think of fight so dread and bloody as Dunbar. 

Then rose the hurtling cannon shower along the startled coasts, 

Then dashed on Lambert’s iron-hearts through Leslie’s scattered 
posts ; 

Then rose their cry, “ The Covenant !” mid sneers, and taunts, and 
boasts. 


APPENDIX. 


267 


“ The Lord of Hosts !” our Captain cried : “ The Lord, the Lord 
of Hosts !’ ’ 

The Word that healed our aching hearts in many an ancient scar,— 
That was the word by which we fought and conquered at Dunbar. 

’Twas when the storm of fight was o’er, the battle almost done, 

From forth the sea, beyond the rocks, looked up the great red sun, 
Our General saw r the flying hosts— “They Run!” he cried, “They 
Run ! 

Let God arise, and let His foes be scattered !” —we had won. 
High o’er the plain his voice arose, we heard it near and far ; 

So our good Lord Protector fought and conquered at Dunbar. 

Then, halting on the battle plain, he raised, so clear and loud, 

A psalm of praise. Its mighty voice peal’d o’ er the awe-struck crowd ; 
The warrior dropped his blood-red sword, the helmed head was 
bowed ; 

It reined at once the mailed hand and checked the passion proud ; 

It still’d the clash of sounding swords ; it still’d the passion’s jar 
Oh, never saw the world a field like that of old Dunbar ! 

Ah me ! ah me ! those days are o’er—the days of shame are here ; 
Our glorious Cromwell’s mangled limbs, our Sidney’s bloody bier ; 
Our land in chains, our faith proscribed,—forgive this failing tear ; 
My heart is strong, my faith is firm, my soul is dead to fear. 

A sword ! a field ! who knows but we might see hope’s rising star? 

A sword ! a field ! our blow might be as stout as old Dunbar. 

No, no ! not that, those words are vain. War’s bloody blazing star, 
It cannot light to freedom’s world or melt the dungeon’s bar. 

Swords cannot hew a way for truth,—they cannot make, but mar ; 
They cannot shiver nations’ chains or dull hearts wake by war. 

I know—for this right arm was red with conquering near and far, 
And fain would I unfurl again the banner of Dunbar. 


Nlbley, Gloucestershire, 1856. 


THE MARTYRDOM OF SIR HARRY VANS. 


“ Great men have been among us, hands that penned, 

And tongues that uttered wisdom—better none. 

Young Vane, and others who called Milton friend. 

These moralists could act and comprehend : 

They knew how genuine glory was put on ; 

Taught us how rightfully a nation shone 
In splendor : what strength was, that would not bend 
But in magnanimous meekness.'” 

— Wordsworth. 

It was thought at first that he would have to walk to execution ; 
the sledge had not arrived. At length it came, and he said, “ Any 
way, how they please ; I long to be at home, to be dissolved, and to 
be with Christ, which is best of all.” He went down-stairs from his 
chamber, and seated himself in the sledge, his friends and servants 
standing by him, and Sykes, his friend and biographer, accompany¬ 
ing him to the close. As they passed aloDg it was like a royal pro¬ 
cession ; shouts and gestures were made to him ; the tops of the 
houses were crowded, and all the windows thronged ; even the pris¬ 
oners of the Tower, as he passed along, and the thronging multi¬ 
tudes by his side, and the people looking down on the procession, 
exclaimed, “ The Lord go with you ; the great God of heaven and 
earth appear in you and for you. ” As he came within the rails of 
the scaffold, the pathetic voices of the people greeted him with like 
acclamations, crying out, “ The Lord Jesus be with thy dear soul.” 

His last words were, “ Father, glorify Thy servant in the sight of 
men, that he may glorify Thee, in the discharge of his duty to Thee 
and to his country.” Thereupon he stretched out his arms, in an 
instant swift fell the stroke, and the head of one of the greatest and 
purest beings that ever adorned our world rolled on the scaffold. So 
Sir Harry went away in his chariot to Heaven ; and Pepys tells us 
how he “ went away to dinner !” A day or two after he tells us how 
“the talk was that Sir Harry Vane must be gone to Heaven, and 
that the King had lost more by that man’s death than he will gain 
again a good while.” Sykes beautifully and pathetically says, 
“ Cromwell’s victories are swallowed up of death ; Vane has swal¬ 
lowed up death itself in victory. He let fall his mantle, left his body 
behind him, that he had worn for nine-and-forty years, and has gone 
to keep his everlasting jubilee in God’s everlasting rest. It is all day 
with him now—no night nor sorrow more ; no prison, nor death !” 




APPENDIX. 


2tii) 


Ho ! Freemen of London, awake from your sleep ! 

Ho ! Freemen ! your slumbers are surely not deep ! 

Awake ! there is treason afloat on the air. 

The morning is bright and the heavens are fair, 

Eut dark are the omens that mantle around, 

There is boding and dread in each murmuring sound. 
What turret gives yonder the boom of the bell ? 

’Tis the toll from the Tower, it is Liberty’s knell, 

And the sun should be curtained in darkness and rain, 
For the day wakens up o’er the scaffold of Vane. 

’Twas the day when our Nero was throned for a king, 

If Nero be named by so shameless a thing ;— 

When the land, like a lazar-house, lay in despair, 

And vice, like a pestilence, haunted the air. 

Not long since the bloodhounds lay chained in despair, 
The lion was monarch ; they shrank from his lair. 

The lion was dead, but the bloodhounds for prey 
Made a feast of the monarch who held them at bay ; 

But, to freshen their fangs with a blood rich in stain, 
They howled and they leaped round the scaffold of Vanb. 


'Twas his morning of death, but he lay in a sleep, 

Like the slumbers of infancy, tranquil and deep ; 

And his face in his slumber reflected the light 
Of the phantoms that passed by his pillow at night. 
Sleep on ! ’tis thy last sleep—no more shall thine eye 
Close on scenes of the earth till it wakes to the sky ; 
So freshen thy spirit, brave soldier, to bear 
The last frown of sorrow, the last glance of care ; 
And gird up thy spirit to front thy last pain, 

And let Time point with pride to the scaffold of Vanh. 

Thro’ the mind of the dreamer the shades of the past 
Were crowding and flitting so thronging and fast: 
Now the far Susquehanna’s bright forests were seen, 
And the camps of the wilderness, glowing and green. 
He remembered the days of his youth; but no sigh 
Proclaimed that remorse or confusion stood by. 

He can look on the past, but his spirit is still; 

He has mounted his Pisgah, and far o’er the hill 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


He beholds the contentions with sorrow, but joy. 

For the soul is erect, and they cannot annoy. 

The winds they blow keen from the past, but in vain ; 

They chill not the spirit or vision of Vane. 

He dreamed he was borne in his slumbers away 
To the proud hall of Bufus, so hoary and gray ; 

Whose rafters resounded, long ages agone, 

To the shout and the wassail, the Conqueror’s song. 

And he saw as he saw it when spread for the doom 
Of the King, and the judgment hung dark o’er the room ; 
And the phantoms of Cromwell and Bradshaw were there. 

As if living, —unshaken, unshadowed by care. 

And the King smiled in kindness, though sad as the day, 

On the couch where the sleeper so peacefully lay. 

It was but a moment, it brightened again, 

And the sun shone in light round the visions of Vane. 
***** 

'Tis the first in the long Saturnalia of Blood ; 

The Tiger is back, he is crying for food. 

The tongue of the Stuart is thirsting for gore, 

And the sweet taste of this shall give relish for more. 

For this shall his name, stiff with treason, go down 
With a stain on his robe and a curse on his crown. 

And the laureate that chanteth his glory shall be 
A pander and traitor more bloody than he. 

This alone, if no other, forever shall stain : 

He piled up the block and the scaffold of Vane. 
***** 

They drew him along on the sledge through the crowd J 
Each head was uncovered and solemnly bowed. 

Far up to the roofs of the houses were seen 
Mute mourners, all wondering aghast at the scene. 

The loving and tender withheld not their tears, 

The faces of patriots were troubled with fears, 

And the cheeks of some spirits blazed forth with disdain : 
They, too, could have mounted the scaffold with Vane. 

They have drawn him along on his sledge through the crowd, 
He has mounted the scaffold with spirit unbowed. 

Some spirits can never their grandeur conceal ; 

The scourge and the scaffold their glory reveal; 


APPENDIX. 


271 


And the eyes they strained deeply to glance on the frame 
So wasted and feeble with sorrow and shame. 

Oh, it was not as Rome’s latest Roman was there, 

*Twas the heart of the Christian defying despair,— 
io brave, so unbending, o’er bale and o’er bane, 

Oh, the throne of a king was the scaffold of Vane. 

How princely, how peerless he looked on that day. 

When the scaffold scowled grimly in bloody array ; 

When the axe and the halberd so cruel and keen, 

To honor the Hero and Martyr were seen ; 

And the soldiers stood gazing in wonder and awe 
On the cheek that smiled calm o’er the axe and the law. 

And wondered to note that the fear and the blame 
Were the meed of the sheriff and headsman ; while shame 
Shrunk timid afar from the scaffold, to keep 
A Royal companionship, noisy and deep, 

And left to the victim no sorrow or stain, 

But curtained with beauty the scaffold of Vane. 

When tyrants their victims urge on to the tomb, 

The hearts of the people sink throbbing to gloom ; 

But the gloom is the dawn of the morn, and they see 
The Right— starting forth where a scaffold should be. 

Ho, tyrants ! Ho, traitors ! Behold it, for here 
The poor headless body must wait for its bier. 

What of that ? He has conquered by dying. The truth 
Has sprung from this block in the glow of its youth. 

Ho ! the chariot that waits when the martyrs are slain 
Hath passed to the skies with the spirit of Vane. 

Yet sad are our hearts when the noble and brave 
Pass down in their garments of blood to the grave ; 

While satyrs and vampires malignant are seen 

Dancing lewdly and wild where their grave should be green ; 

While Vice, decked with roses, sits gay on its throne. 

And sings its lewd songs in its bacchanal tone, 

Meek Faith sinks to death with a spasm of pain, 

Or sighs as she sighed by the scaffold of Vane. 

Yet better by far is the scaffold of Vane 

Than the couch where Charles Stuart sank shrieking with pain ; 
With a lie in his mouth and a lie on his heart, 

And a weak hand uplifted to ward off the dart; 


%n 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


And his harlot attendants, who pressed but to peep 
And to pillage his form, as he slept his last sleep ; 

With scoundrels and traitors to curtain the gloom, 

And a hireling Confessor to sneak through the room. 

Great God ! I had rather the scaffold of Vane, 

Or I’d rot to my death in a dungeon and chain.* 

* It is, perhaps, needless to say that this last verse, severe as it seems or sounds, 
merely describes the death-bed of Charles the Second; a passage from «*ohn 
Evelyn’s letters will, doubtless, occur to the memory of many readers. 


Nlblet, Gloucestershire, 1856. 


APPENDIX. 




SPEECH OF OLIVER CROMWELL IN DISSOLVING THE 
FIRST PROTECTORATE PARLIAMENT. 

Gentlemen, 

I perceive you are here as the House of 
Parliament, by your Speaker whom I see here, and by your 
faces which are in a great measure known to me. [Doubt¬ 
less we are here , your Highness /] 

When I first met you in this room, it was to my appre¬ 
hension the hopefulest day that ever mine eyes saw, as to 
the considerations of this world. For I did look at, as 
wrapt-up in yon together with myself, the hopes and the 
happiness of,—though not of the greatest,—yet a very 
great ‘ People ; ’ and the best People in the world. And 
truly and unfeignedly I thought * it ’ so : as a People that 
have the highest and clearest profession amongst them of 
the greatest glory, namely Religion : as a People that have 
been, like other Nations, sometimes up and sometimes 
down in our honour in the world, but yet never so low but 
we might measure with other Nations :—and a People that 
have had a stamp upon them from God [Hah!]; God 
having, as it were, summed-up all our former honour and 
glory in the things that are of glory to Nations, in an 
Epitome, within these Ten or Twelve years last past! So 
that we knew one another at home, and are well known 
abroad. 

And if I be not very much mistaken, we were arrived,— 

as I, and truly I believe as many others, did think,—at a 

273 



274 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


very safe port; where we might sit down and contemplate 
the Dispensations of God and our Mercies ; and might 
know our Mercies not to have been like to those of the 
Ancients,—who did make out their peace and prosperity, 
as they thought, by their own endeavours ; who could not 
say, as we, That all ours were let down to us from God 
Himself! Whose appearances and providences amongst 
us are not to be outmatched by any Story. [ Deep silence; 
from the old Parliament, and from us.] Truly this was our 
condition. And I know nothing else we had to do, save 
as Israel was commanded in that most excellent Psalm of 
David : “ The things which we have heard and known, 
and our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from 
our children ; showing to the generation to come the 
praises of the Lord, and His strength, and His wonderful 
works that He hath done. For He established a Testi¬ 
mony in Jacob, and appointed a Law in Israel; which He 
commanded our fathers that they should make known to 
their children ; that the generation to come might know 
them, even the children which should be born, who should 
arise and declare them to their children: that they might 
set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, 
but keep his commandments.” * 

This I thought had been a song and a work worthy of 
England, whereunto you might happily have invited them, 
—had you had hearts unto it. [Alas!] You had this 
opportunity fairly delivered unto you. And if a history 
shall be written of these Times and Transactions, it will 
be said, it will not be denied, that these things that I have 
spoken are true! [Ah response from the Moderns: mere 
silence, stupor, not without sadness.] This talent was put 
into your hands. And I shall recur to that which I said 
at the first: I came with very great joy and contentment 
and comfort, the first time I met you in this place. But 
we and these Nations are, for the present, under some dis- 


* Psalm lxxviii. 3-7. 


APPENDIX. 


275 


appointment!—If I had proposed to have played the Ora¬ 
tor,—which I never did affect, nor do, nor I hope shall 
[Hear!], —I doubt not hut upon easy suppositions, which 
I am persuaded every one among you will grant, we did 
meet upon such hopes as these. 

I met you a second time here: and I confess, at that 
meeting 1 had much abatement of my hopes ; though 
not a total frustration. I confess that that which damped 
my hopes so soon was somewhat that did look like a par¬ 
ricide. It is obvious enough unto you that the 4 then ’ 
management of affairs did savour of a Not owning,—too- 
too much savour, I say, of a Not owning of the Authority 
that called you hither. But God left us not without an 
expedient that gave a second possibility—Shall I say pos¬ 
sibility ? It seemed to me a probability,—of recovering 
out of that dissatisfied condition we were all then in, to¬ 
wards some mutuality of satisfaction. And therefore by 
that Recognition [ The parchment ice had to sign: 
Hum-m /], suiting with the Indenture that returned you 
hither ; to which afterwards was also added your own Dec¬ 
laration,* conformable to, and in acceptance of, that ex¬ 
pedient: thereby, f I say/ you had, though with a little 
check, another opportunity renewed unto you to have made 
this Nation as happy as it could have been if everything 
had smoothly run on from that first hour of your meeting. 
And indeed,—you will give me liberty of my thoughts and 
hopes,—I did think, as I have formerly found in that way 
that I have been engaged in as a soldier, That some af¬ 
fronts put upon us, some disasters at the first, have made 
way for very great and happy successes; f and I did not at 
all despond but the stop put upon you, in like manner, 
would have made way for a blessing from God. That In¬ 
terruption being, as I thought, necessary to divert you 
from violent and destructive proceedings; to give time for 

* Commons Journals (vii. 368), 14th Sept., 1654. 

+ Characteristic sentence, and sentiment not to be meddled with. 


276 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


better deliberations ;—whereby leaving the Government as 
you found it, you might have proceeded to have made 
those good and wholesome Laws which the People expected 
from you, and might have answered the Grievances, and 
settled those other things proper to you as a Parliament: 
for which you would have had thanks from all that in¬ 
trusted you. [ Doubtful (i Hum-m-m ! ” from the old 
Parliament. ] 

What hath happened since that time I have not taken 
public notice of; as declining to intrench on Parliament 
privileges. For sure I am you will all bear me witness. That 
from your entering into the House upon the Recognition, 
to this very day, you have had no manner of interruption 
or hindrance of mine in proceeding to what blessed issue 
the heart of a good man could propose to himself,—to this 
very day ‘ none/ You see you have me very much locked 
up, as to what you have transacted among yourselves, from 
that time to this. [“ None dare report us, or whisper 
what we do.”] But some things I shall take liberty to 
speak of to you. 

As I may not take notice what you have been doing; so 
I think I have a very great liberty to tell you That I do 
not know what you have been doing! [ With a certain 
tone; as one may hear I'] I do not know whether you 
have been alive or dead. I have not once heard from you 
all this time; I have not: and that you all know. If that 
be a fault that I have not, surely it hath not been mine !— 
If I have had any melancholy thoughts, and have sat down 
by them,—why might it not have been very lawful for me 
to think that I was a Person judged unconcerned in all 
these businesses ? I can assure you I have not so reckoned 
myself ! Nor did I reckon myself unconcerned in you. 
And so long as any just patience could support my expect¬ 
ation, I would have waited to the uttermost to have re¬ 
ceived from you the issue of your consultations and resolu¬ 
tions.—I have been careful of your safety, and the safety 


APPEHDIX. 


277 


of those that you represented, to whom I reckon myself a 
servant.— 

But what messages have I disturbed you withal? What 
injury or indignity hath been done, or offered, either to 
your persons or to any privileges of Parliament, since you 
sat? I looked at myself as strictly obliged by my Oath, 
since your recognising the Government in the authority of 
which you were called hither and sat, To give you all pos¬ 
sible security, and to keep you from any unparliamentary 
interruption. Think you I could not say more upon this 
subject, if I listed to expatiate thereupon? But because 
my actions plead for me, I shall say no more of this. [ Old 
Parliament dubiously rolls its eyes .]—I say, I have been 
caring for you , for your quiet sitting; caring for your 
privileges, as I said before, that they might not be inter¬ 
rupted ; have been seeking of God, from the great God a 
blessing upon you, and a blessing upon these Nations. I 
have been consulting if possibly I might, in anything, pro¬ 
mote, in my place, the real good of this Parliament, of the 
hopefulness of which I have said so much unto you. And 
I did think it to be my business rather to see the utmost 
issue, and what God would produce by you, than unseason¬ 
ably to intermeddle with you. 

But, as I said before, I have been caring for you, and for 
the peace and quiet of these Nations ; indeed I have; and 
that I shall a little presently manifest unto you. And it 
leadeth me to let you know somewhat,—which, I fear, I 
fear, will be, through some interpretation, a little too justly 
put upon you ; whilst you have been employed asyou have 
been, and,—in all that time expressed in the Government, in 
that Government, I say in that Government,—have brought 
forth nothing that you yourselves say can be taken notice of 
without infringement of your privileges ! * I will tell you 

* An embarrassed sentence ; characteristic of his Highness. “ You have 
done nothing noticeable upon this ‘ Somewhat ’ that I am about to speak of,— 
nor, indeed, it seems upon any Somewhatand this was one you may, 
without much ‘interpretation,’(be blamed for doing nothing upon.” 


278 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


somewhat, which, if it be not news to yon, I wish yon had 
taken very serions consideration of. If it be news, I wish 
I had acquainted you with it sooner. And yet if any man 
will ask me why I did it not, the reason is given already : Be¬ 
cause I did make it my business to give you no interruption. 

There be some trees that will not grow under the shadow 
of other trees : There be some that choose,—a man may 
say so by way of allusion,—to thrive under the shadow of 
other trees. I will tell you what hath thriven,—I will 
not say what you have cherished, under your shadow ; that 
were too hard. Instead of Peace and Settlement,—in¬ 
stead of mercy and truth being brought together, and 
righteousness and peace kissing each other, by ‘your ? re¬ 
conciling the Honest People of these Nations, and set¬ 
tling the woful distempers that are amongst us; which 
had been glorious things and worthy of Christians to have 
proposed,—weeds and nettles, briers and thorns have 
thriven under your shadow ! Dissettlement and division, 
discontent and dissatisfaction ; together with real dan¬ 
gers to the whole,—have been more multiplied within 
these five months of your sitting, than in some years be¬ 
fore ! Foundations have also been laid for the future re¬ 
newing of the Troubles of these Nations by all the enemies 
of them abroad and at home. Let not these words seem 
too sharp : for they are true as any mathematical 
demonstrations are or can be. I say, the enemies of the 
peace of these Nations abroad and at home, the discon¬ 
tented humours throughout these Nations,—which f pro¬ 
ducts , I think no man will grudge to call by that name, 
of briers and thorns,— they have nourished themselves 
under your shadow ! [ Old Parliament looks still more 

uneasy .] 

And that I may clearly be understood : They have taken 

‘ Government ’ means Instrument of Government: * the time expressed ’ 
therein is Five Months,—now, by my way of calculating it, expired 1 Which 
may account for the embarrassed iteration of the phrase, on his Highness’s 
part. 


APPENDIX. 


279 


their opportunities from your sitting, and from the hopes 
they had, which with easy conjecture they might take up 
and conclude that there would be no Settlement; and 
they have framed their designs, preparing for the execu¬ 
tion of them accordingly. Now whether,—which apper¬ 
tains not to me to judge of, on their behalf,—they had 
any occasion ministered for this, and from whence they 
had it I list not to make any scrutiny or search. But I 
will say this : I think they had it not from me. I am sure 
they had not ‘from me.’ From whence they had, is 
not my business now to discourse : but that they had, 
is obvious to every man’s sense. What prepara¬ 
tions they have made, to be executed in such a season 
as they thought fit to take their opportunity from : that I 
know, not as men know things by conjecture, but by cer¬ 
tain demonstrable knowledge. That they have been for 
some time past furnishing themselves with arms ; nothing 
doubting but they should have a day for it; and verily 
believing that, whatsoever their former disappointments 
were, they should have more done for them by and from 
our own divisions, than they were able to do for them¬ 
selves. I desire to be understood That, in all I have to 
say of this subject, you will take it that I have no reser¬ 
vation in my mind,—as I have not,—to mingle things of 
guess and suspicion with things of fact: but ‘ that 5 the 
things I am telling of are fact; things of evident demon¬ 
stration. 

These weeds, briers and thorns,—they have been prepar¬ 
ing, and have brought their designs to some maturity, by 
the advantages given to them, as aforesaid, from your 
sittings and proceedings. [“ Hum-m-m ! ”] But by the 
Waking Eye that watched over that Cause that God will 
bless, they have been, and yet are, disappointed. [Yea!] 
And having mentioned that Cause, I say, that slighted 
Cause,—let me speak a few words in behalf thereof ; 
though it may seem too long a digression. Whosoever 


280 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


despiseth it, and will say, It is non Causa pro Causa , c a 
Cause without Cause/—the All-searching Eye before men¬ 
tioned will find out that man ; and will judge him, as one 
that regardeth not the works of God nor the operations of 
His hands ! [Moderns loolc astonished .] For which God 
hath threatened that He will cast men down, and not 
build them up. That ‘man who/ because he can dispute, 
will tell us he knew not when the Cause began, nor where 
it is ; but modelleth it according to his own intellect: and 
submits not to the Appearances of God in the World ; and 
therefore lifts up his heel against God, and mocketh at all 
His providence ; laughing at the observations, made up 
not without reason and the Scriptures, and by the quicken¬ 
ing and teaching Spirit which gives life to these others ; 
—calling such observations “ enthusiasms : ” such men, 
I say, no wonder if they “ stumble and fall backwards, 
and be broken and snared and taken,”* by the things of 
which they are so wilfully and maliciously ignorant! The 
Scriptures say, “ The Rod has a voice, and He will make 
Himself known by the judgments which He executeth.” 
And do we not think He will, and does, by the providences 
of mercy and kindness which He hath for His People and 
their just liberties ; “whom He loves as the apple of His 
eye ” ? Doth He not by them manifest Himself ? And 
is He not thereby also seen giving kingdoms for them, 
“ giving men for them and people for their lives,” 
—as it is in Isaiah Forty-third ? f Is not this as fair 
a lecture and as clear speaking, as anything our 
dark reason, left to the letter of the Scriptures, can 
collect from them ? By this voice has God spoken 
very loud on behalf of His People, by judging their 
enemies in the late War, and restoring them a liberty to 
worship, with the freedom of their consciences, and free- 

* Isaiah, xxviii. 13. A text that had made a great impression upon Oliver : 
see Letter to the General Assembly, vol. ii. p. 178. 

t Isaiah, xliii. 3, 4: Another prophecy of awful moment to his Highness: see 
Speech I. vol. ii. p. 362. 


APPENDIX. 


281 


dom in estates and persons when they do so. And thus 
we have found the Cause of God by the woibs of God ; 
which are the testimony of God. Upon which rock who¬ 
soever splits shall suffer shipwreck. But it is your glory, 
—and it is mine, if I have any in the world concerning 
the Interest of those that have an interest in a better 
world,—it is my glory that I know a Cause which yet we 
have not lost; but do hope we shall take a little pleasure 
rather to lose our lives than lose ! [Hah /]—But you will 

excuse this long digression.- 

I say unto you, Whilst you have been in the midst of 
these Transactions, that Party,—that Cavalier Party,— 
I could wish some of them had thrust-in here, to have 
heard what I say,—have been designing and preparing to 
put this Nation in blood again, with a witness. But be¬ 
cause I am confident there are none of that sort here, 
therefore I shall say the less to that. Only this I must 
tell you : They have been making great preparations of 
arms ; and I do believe it will be made evident to you that 
they have raked-out many thousands of arms, even all 
that this City could afford, for divers months last past. 
But it will be said, ‘ May we not arm ourselves for the 
defence of our houses ? Will anybody find fault for that ? ” 
Not for that. But the reason for their doing so hath 
been as explicit, and under as clear proof, as the fact of 
doing so. For which I hope, by the justice of the land, 
some will, in the face of the Nation, answer it with their 
lives : and then the business will be pretty well out of 
doubt.—Banks of money have been framing, for these and 
other suchlike uses. Letters have been issued with privy- 
seals, to as great Persons as most are in the Nation, for 
the advance of money,—which ‘ Letters 9 have been dis¬ 
covered to us by the Persons themselves. Commissions 
for Regiments of horse and foot, and command of Castles, 
have been likewise given from Charles Stuart, since your 
sitting. And what the general insolences of that Party 



282 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


have been, the Honest People have been sensible of, and 
can very well testify. 

It has not only been thus. Bat as in a quinsy or 
pleurisy, where the humour fixeth in one part, give it scope, 
all f disease’ will gather to that place, to the hazarding of 
the whole : and it is natural to do so till it destroy life in that 
person on whomsoever this befalls. So likewise will these 
diseases take accidental causes of aggravation of their 
distemper. And this was that which I did assert. That 
they have taken accidental causes for the growing and in¬ 
creasing of those distempers,—as much as would have-been 
in the natural body if timely remedy were not applied. 
And indeed things were come to that pass,— in respect of 
which I shall give you a particular account,—that no 
mortal physician, if the Great Physician had not stepped 
in, could have cured the distemper. Shall I lay this upon 
your account, or my own ? I am sure I can lay it upon 
God’s account : That if He had not stepped in the disease 
had been mortal and destructive ! 

And what is all this ? * What are these new diseases 

that have gathered to this point ? 9 Truly I must needs 
still say : “ A company of men like briers and thorns ; ” and 
worse, if worse can be. Of another sort than those before 
mentioned to you. These also have been and yet are en¬ 
deavouring to put us into blood and into confusion ; more 
desperate and dangerous confusion than England ever yet 
saw. [ Anabaptist Levellers .] And I must say, as when 
Gideon commanded his son to fall upon Zeba and Zalmun- 
na, and slay them, they thought it more noble to die by 
the hand of a man than of a stripling,—which shows there 
is some contentment in the hand by which a man falls : so 
it is some satisfaction if a Commonwealth must perish, 
that it perish by men, and not by the hands of persons dif¬ 
fering little from beasts ! That if it must needs suffer, it 
should rather suffer from rich men than from poor men, 
who, as Solomon says, “ when they oppress, leave nothing 


APPENDIX. 


283 


behind them, but are as a sweeping rain.” Now such as 
these also are grown up under your shadow. But it will 
be asked, What have they done? I hope, though they pre¬ 
tend “ Commonwealth’s Interest,” they have had no en¬ 
couragement from you; but have, as in the former case, 
rather taken it than that you have administered any cause 
unto them for so doing. f Any cause ’ from delays, from 
hopes that this Parliament would not settle, from Pam¬ 
phlets mentioning strange Votes and Resolves of yours ; 
which I hope did abuse you ! But thus you see that, what¬ 
ever the grounds were, these have been the effects. And 
thus I have laid these things before you; and you and others 
will be easily able to judge how far you are concerned. 

“ What these men have done ? ” They also have la¬ 
boured to pervert, where they could, and as they could, the 
Honest-meaning People of the Nation. They have la¬ 
boured to engage some in the Army:—and I doubt that not 
only they, but some others also, very well known to you, 
have helped to this work of debauching and dividing the 
Army. They have, they have! [ Overton, Allen and Com¬ 
pany, your Highness ?] I would be loath to say Who, 
Where, and How? much more loath to say they were any of 
your own number. But I can say: Endeavours have been 
‘made’ to put the Army into a distemper, and to feed 
that which is the worst humour in the Army. Which 
though it was not a mastering humour, yet these took ad¬ 
vantage from delay of the Settlement, and the practices 
before mentioned, and the stopping of the pay of the Army, 
to run us into Free-quarter, and to bring us into the in¬ 
conveniences most to be feared and avoided.—What if I 
am able to make it appear in fact, That some amongst you 
have run into the City of London, to persuade to Peti¬ 
tions and Addresses to you for reversing your own Votes 
that you have passed? Whether these practices were in 
favour of your Liberties, or tended to beget hopes of Peace 
and Settlement from you; and whether debauching the 


284 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


Army in England, as is before expressed, and starving it, 
and putting it upon Free-quarter, and occasioning and 
necessitating the greatest part thereof in Scotland to 
march into England, leaving the remainder thereof to have 
their throats cut there; and kindling by the rest a fire in 
our own bosoms, were for the advantage of affairs here, let 
the world judge! 

This I tell you also: That the correspondence held with 
the’ Interest of the Cavaliers, by that Party of men called 
Levellers, who call themselves Commonwealth’s-men, ‘is 
in our hands/ Whose Declarations were framed to that 
purpose, and ready to be published at the time of their 
‘ projected common Eising; whereof, c I say/ we are pos¬ 
sessed; and for which we have the confession of themselves 
now in custody; who confess also they built their hopes 
upon the assurance the T had of the Parliament’s not agree¬ 
ing to a Settlement: —whether these humours have not 
nourished themselves under your boughs, is the subject of 
my present discourse; and I think I shall say not amiss, if 
I affirm it to be so. [His Highness looks animated /] 
And I must say it again. That that which hath been their 
advantage, thus to raise disturbance, hath been by the loss 
of those golden opportunities which God had put into your 
hands for Settlement. Judge you whether these things 
were thus, or not, when you first sat down. I am sure 
things were not thus ! There was a very great peace and 
sedateness throughout these Nations ; and great expecta¬ 
tions of a happy Settlement. Which I remembered to you 
at the beginning in my Speech; and hoped that you would 
have entered on your business as you found it. [“ Hum - 
m-m ! We had a Constitution to make ! ”] 

There was a Government ‘ already ’ in the possession of 
the People,—I say a Government in the possession of the 
People, for many months. It hath now been exercised 
near Fifteen Months; and if it were needful that I should 
tell you how it came into their possession, and how will- 


APPENDIX. 


285 


ingly they received it; how all Law and Justice were dis¬ 
tributed from it, in every respect, as to life, liberty and 
estate; how it was owned by God, as being the dispensa¬ 
tion of His providence after Twelve Years War; and 
sealed and witnessed unto by the People,—I should but 
repeat what I said in my last Speech unto you in this 
place : and therefore I forbear. When you were entered 
upon this Government; ravelling into it—You know I 
took no notice what you were doing— [Nor will now , your 
Highness; let the Sentence drop!] —If you had gone upon 
that foot of account. To have made such good and whole¬ 
some provisions for the Good of the People of these 
Nations ‘ as were wanted;' for the settling of such matters 
in things of Religion as would have upheld and given 
countenance to a Godly Ministry and yet f as 7 would have 
given a just liberty to Godly men of different judgments, 
—‘ to * men of the same faith with them that you call the 
Orthodox Ministry in England, as it is well known the In¬ 
dependents are, and many under the form of Baptism, 
who are sound in the faith, and though they may perhaps 
be different in judgment in some lesser matters, yet as true 
Christians both looking for salvation only by faith in the 
blood of Christ, men professing the fear of God, and 
having recourse to the name of God as to a strong tower, 
—I say you might have had opportunity to have settled 
peace and quietness amongst all professing Godliness ; and 
might have been instrumental, if not to have healed the 
breaches, yet to have kept the Godly of all judgments from 
running one upon another; and by keeping them from be¬ 
ing overrun by a Common Enemy, Hiave’ rendered them 
and these Nations both secure, happy and well satisfied. 
[And the Constitution f Hum-m-m!] 

Are these things done; or any things towards them ? Is 
there not yet upon the spirits of men a strange itch ? 
Nothing will satisfy them unless they can press their 'finger 
upon their brethren's consciences, to pinch them there. 


286 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


To do this was no part of the Contest we had with the 
Common Adversary. Tor ‘ indeed 9 Religion was not the 
thing at first contested for f at all ; 7 * but God brought it 
to that issue at last; and gave it unto us by way of redun¬ 
dancy; and at last it proved to be that which was most dear 
to us. And wherein consisted this more than In obtaining 
that liberty from the tyranny of the Bishops to all species 
of Protestants to worship God according to their own light 
and consciences? For want of which many of our brethren 
forsook their native countries to seek their bread from 
strangers, and to live in howling wildernesses [ Our poor 
brethren of New England /]; and for which also many that 
remained here were imprisoned, and otherwise abused and 
made the scorn of the Nation. Those that were sound in 
the faith, how proper was it for them to labour for liberty, 
for a just liberty, that men might not be trampled upon 
for their consciences ! Had not they i themselves 9 labour¬ 
ed, but lately, under the weight of persecution? And was 
it fit for them to sit heavy upon others ? Is it ingenuous 
to ask liberty, and not to give it? What greater hypocrisy 
than for those who were oppressed by the Bishops to become 
the greatest oppressors themselves, so soon as their yoke was 
removed? I could wish that they who call for liberty now 
also had not too much of that spirit, if the power were in 
their hands !—As for profane persons, blasphemers, such as 
preach sedition; the contentious railers, evil-speakers, who 
seek by evil words to corrupt good manners ; persons of 
loose conversation,—punishment from the Civil Magistrate 
ought to meet with these. Because, if they pretend con¬ 
science ; yet walking disorderly and not according but con¬ 
trary to the Gospel, and even to natural lights,—they are 
judged of all. And their sins being open, make them sub¬ 
jects of the Magistrate’s sword, who ought not to bear it in 
vain.—The discipline of the Army ivas such, that a man 

* Power of the Militia was the point upon which the actual War began. A 
statement not false; yet truer in form than it is in essence. 


APPENDIX. 287 

would not be suffered to remain there, of whom we could 
take notice he was guilty of such practices as these.— 

And therefore how happy would England have been, and 
you and I, if the Lord had led you on to have settled upon 
such good accounts as these are, and to have discounte¬ 
nanced such practices as the other, and left men in dispu¬ 
table things free to their own consciences ! Which was well 
provided for by the ‘Instrument of’ Government; and 
liberty left to provide against what was apparently evil. 
Judge you. Whether the contesting for things that were 
provided for by this Government hath been profitable ex¬ 
pense of time, for the good of these Nations ! By means 
whereof you may see you have wholly elapsed your time, 
and done just nothing !—I will say this to you, in behalf 
of the Long Parliament: That, had such an expedient as 
this Government been proposed to them ; and could they 
have seen the Cause of God thus provided for ; and been, 
by debates, enlightened in the grounds £ of it,’ whereby 
the difficulties might have been cleared ‘ to them,’ and the 
reason of the whole enforced, and the circumstances of 
time and persons, with the temper and disposition of the 
People, and affairs both abroad and at home when it was 
undertaken might have been well weighed ‘by them:’ I 
think in my conscience,—well as they were thought to love 
their seats,—they would have proceeded in another manner 
than you have done ! And not have exposed things to 
these difficulties and hazards they now are at; nor given 
occasion to leave the People so dissettled as they now are. 
Who, I dare say, in the soberest and most judicious part 
of them, did expect, not a questioning, but a doing of 
things in pursuance of the ‘ Instrument of ’ Government. 
And if I be not misinformed, very many of you came up 
with this satisfaction; having had time enough to weigh 
and consider the same. 

And when I say “ such an expedient as this Govern¬ 
ment,”—wherein I dare assert there is a just Liberty to 


288 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


the People of God, and the just Rights of the People in 
these Nations provided for,—I can put the issue thereof 
upon the clearest reason; whatsoever any go about to sug¬ 
gest to the contrary. But this not being the time and 
place of such an averment, ‘ I forbear at present.’ For 
satisfaction’s sake herein, enough is said in a Book enti¬ 
tled 4 A State of the Case of the Commonwealth ,’ published 
in January, 1653.* And for myself, I desire not to keep 
my place in this Government an hour longer than I may 
preserve England in its just rights, and may protect the 
People of God in such a just Liberty of their Consciences 
as I have already mentioned. And therefore if this Parlia¬ 
ment have judged things to be otherwise than as I have 
stated them,—it had been huge friendliness between per¬ 
sons who had such a reciprocation in so great concernments 
to the public, for them to have convinced me in what partic¬ 
ulars therein my error lay! Of which I never yet had a 
word from you! But if, instead thereof, your time has 
been spent in setting-up somewhat else, upon another 
bottom than this stands f upon,’—it looks as if the laying 
grounds for a quarrel had rather been designed than to 
give the People settlement . If it be thus, it’s ivell your 
labours have not arrived to any maturity at all! [ Old 
Parliament looks agitated ; — agitated, yet constant! ] 

This Government called you hither; the constitution 
thereof being limited so,—a Single Person and a Parlia¬ 
ment. And this was thought most agreeable to the gen¬ 
eral sense of the Nation;—having had experience enough, 
by trial, of other conclusions ; judging this most likely to 
avoid the extremes of Monarchy on the one hand, and of 
Democracy on the other:—and yet not to found Dominium 
in Gratia ‘ either.’ [Your Highness does not claim to he 
here as Kings do, By Grace, then ? No /] And if so, 

* Read it he who wants satisfaction : • Printed by Thomas Newcomb, London, 
1653-4 ‘ wrote with great spirit of language and subtility of argument,’ says 

the Parliamentary History (xx. 419). 


APPENDIX. 


289 


then certainly to make the Authority more than a mere 
notion, it was requisite that it should be as it is in this 
‘ Frame of 9 Government; which puts it upon a true and 
equal balance. It has been already submitted to the judi¬ 
cious, true and honest People of this Nation, Whether the 
balance be not equal? And what their judgment is, is 
visible,—by submission to it; by acting upon it ; by re¬ 
straining their Trustees from meddling with it. And it 
neither asks nor needs any better ratification! [Hear!] 
But when Trustees in Parliament shall, by experience, find 
any evil in any parts of this ‘ Frame of ’ Government, ‘ a 
question 9 referred by the Government itself to the con¬ 
sideration of the Protector and Parliament,—of which evil 
or evils Time itself will be the best discoverer:—how can 
it be reasonably imagined that a Person or Persons, com¬ 
ing in by election, and standing under such obligations, 
and so limited, and so necessitated by oath to govern for 
the People’s good, and to make their love, under God, the 
best underpropping and only safe footing:—how can it, I 
say, be imagined that the present or succeeding Protectors 
will refuse to agree to alter any such thing in the Govern¬ 
ment as may be found to be for the good of the People ? 
Or to recede from anything which he might be convinced 
casts the balance too much to the Single Person? And 
although, for the present, the keeping-up and having in 
his power the Militia seems the hardest f condition/ yet 
if the power of the Militia should be yielded up at such a 
time as this, when there is as much need of it to keep this 
Cause (now most evidently impugned by all Enemies),as 
there was to get it ‘ for the sake of this Cause : 9 —what 
would become of us all! Or if it should not be equally 
placed in him and the Parliament, but yielded up at any 
time ,—it determines his power either for doing the good 
he ought, or hindering Parliaments from perpetuating 
themselves; from imposing what Religion they please on 
the consciences of men, or what Government they please 
J 9 


290 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


upon the Nation. Thereby subjecting us to dissettlement 
in every Parliament, and to the desperate consequences 
thereof. And if the Nation shall happen to fall into a 
blessed Peace, how easily and certainly will their charge 
be taken off, and their forces be disbanded! And then 
where will the danger be to have the Militia thus stated? 
—What if I should say: if there be a disproportion, or dis- 
quality as to the power, it is on the other hand ! — 

And if this be so, Wherein have you had cause to quarrel? 
What demonstrations have you held forth to settle me to 
your opinion ? I would you had made me so happy as to 
have let me know your grounds ! . I have made a free and 
ingenuous confession of my faith to you. And I could 
have wished it had been in your hearts to have agreed that 
some friendly and cordial debates might have been toward 
mutual conviction. Was there none amongst you to move 
such a thing ? No fitness to listen to it ! No desire of a 
right understanding ? It it be not folly in me to listen to 
Town-talk, such things have been proposed ; and rejected, 
with stiffness and severity, once and again. Was it not 
likely to have been more advantageous to the good of this 
Nation? I will say this to you for myself; and to that I 
have my conscience as a thousand witnesses, and I have 
my comfort and contentment in it; and I have the witness 
‘ too , of divers here, who I think truly ‘ would 9 scorn to 
own me in a lie: That I would not have been averse to any 
alteration, of the good of which I might have been con¬ 
vinced. Although I could not have agreed to the taking 
it off the foundation on which it stands ; namely, the ac¬ 
ceptance and consent of the People. [“ Our sanction not 
needed , then ! ”] 

I will not presage what you have been about, or doing, in 
all this time. Nor do I love to make conjectures. But I 
must tell you this: That as I undertook this Government in 
the simplicity of my heart and as before God, and to do the 


APPENDIX. 


291 


part of an honest man, and to be true to the Interest,— 
which in my conscience ‘I think’ is dear to many of you; 
though it is not always understood what God in His wis¬ 
dom may hide from us, as to Peace and Settlement:— 
so I can say that no particular interest, either of myself, 
estate, honor or family, are, or have been, prevalent with 
me to this undertaking. For if you had, upon the old 
Government,* offered me this one, this one thing, I 
speak as thus advised, and before God ; as having been to 
this day of this opinion ; and this hath been my constant 
judgment, well known to many who hear me speak :—if, 

‘ I say,’ this one thing had been inserted, this one thing, 
That the Government should have been placed in my 
Family hereditarily, I would have rejected it ! f And I 
could have done no other according to my present con¬ 
science and light. I will tell you my reason ;—though I 
cannot tell what God tvill do with me, nor with you, nor 
with the Nation, for throwing away precious opportunities 
committed to us. 

This hath been my principle ; and I liked it, when this 
Government came first to be proposed to me, That it puts 
us off that hereditary way. Well looking that God hath de¬ 
clared what Government He delivered to the Jews ; and 
‘ that He ’ placed it upon such Persons as had been instru¬ 
mental for the Conduct and Deliverance of His People. 
And considering that Promise in Isaiah , “ That God would 
give Rulers as at the first, and Judges as at the beginning,” 
I did not know but that God might ‘now’ begin,— 
and though, at present, with a most unworthy person ; yet, 
as to the future, it might be after this manner ; and I 
thought this might usher it in ! [A nolle thought, your 
Highness /] I am speaking as to my judgment against 

* Means * the existing Instrument of Government ’ without modification of 
yours. 

t The matter in debate, running very high at this juncture, in the Parlia¬ 
ment, was with regard to the Single Person’s being hereditary. Hence partly 
the Protector’s emphasis here. 


292 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


making Government hereditary. To have men chosen, 
for their love to God, and to Truth and Justice; and not 
to have it hereditary. For as it is in the Ecclesiastes: 
“ Who knoweth whether he may beget a fool or a wise 
man?” Honest or not honest, whatever they be, they 
must come in, on that plan ; because the Government is 
made a patrimony ! And this I perhaps do declare with 
too much earnestness ; as being my own concernment 
and know not what place it may have in your hearts, and 
in those of the Good People in the Nation. But however 
it be, I have comfort in this my truth and plainness. 

I have thus told you my thoughts ; which truly I have 
declared to you in the fear of God, as knowing He will not 
be mocked ; and in the strength of God, as knowing and 
rejoicing that I am supported in my speaking ;—especially 
when I do not form or frame things without the compass 
of integrity and honesty ; ‘ so ’ that my own conscience 
gives me not the lie to what I say. And then in what I 
say, I can rejoice. 

Now to speak a word or two to you. Of that, I must 
profess in the name of the same Lord, and wish there had 
been no cause that I should have thus spoken to you ! I 
told you that I came with joy the first time ; with some 
regret the second ; yet now I speak with most regret of all! 
1 look upon you as having among you many persons that I 
could lay-down my life individually for. I could, through 
the grace of God, desire to lay-down my life for you. So 
far am I from having an unkind or unchristian heart to¬ 
wards you in your particular capacities ! I have this in¬ 
deed as a work most incumbent upon me ; ‘ this of speaking 
these things to you.’ I consulted what might be my duty 
in such a day as this; casting up all considerations. I 
must confess, as I told you, that I did think occasionally, 
This Nation had suffered extremely in the respects men¬ 
tioned ; as also in the disappointment of their expectations 
of that justice which was due to them by your sitting thus 


APPENDIX. 


293 


long. ‘ Sitting thus long ; ’ and what have you brought 
forth? I did not nor cannot comprehend what it is. I 
would be loath to call it a Fate ; that were too paganish a 
word. But there hath been Something in it that we had 
not in our expectations. 

I did think also, for myself. That I am like to meet with 
difficulties ; and that this Nation will not, as it is fit it 
should not, be deluded with pretexts of Necessity in that 
great business of raising of Money. And were it not that 
I can make some dilemmas upon which to resolve some 
things of my conscience, judgment and actions, I should 
sink at the very prospect of my encounters. Some of them 
are general, some are more special. [ Hear the “dilem¬ 
mas.”] Supposing this Cause or this Business must be car¬ 
ried on, it is either of God or of man. If it be of man, I 
would I had never touched it with a finger. [Hear /] If 
I had not had a hope fixed in me that this Cause and this 
Business was of God, I would many years ago have run 
from it. If it be of God, He will bear it up. [Yea/] If 
it be of man, it will tumble ; as everything that hath been 
of man since the world began hath done. And what are 
all our Histories, and other Traditions of Actions in former 
times, but God manifesting Himself, that He hath shaken, 
and tumbled down and trampled upon, everything that He 
had not planted ? [ Yes, your Highness; such is, was and 

forever will be, the History of Man, deeply as we poor 
Moderns have now forgotten it: and the Bible of every Na¬ 
tion is its Own History ; if it have, or had, any real 
Bible!] And as this is, so ‘let* the All-wise God deal 
with it. If this be of human structure and invention, and 
if it be an old Plotting and Contriving to bring things to 
this Issue, and that they are not the Births of Providence, 

_then they will tumble. But if the Lord take pleasure 

in England, and if He will do us good,—He is very able to 
bear us up ! Let the difficulties be whatsoever they will, 
we shall in His strength be able to encounter with them. 


294 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


And I bless God I have been inured to difficulties ; and I 
never found God failing when I trusted in Him. I can 
laugh and sing, in my heart, when I speak of these things 
to you or elsewhere. And though some may think it is an 
hard thing To raise Money without Parliamentary Author¬ 
ity upon this Nation ; yet I have another argument to the 
Good People of this Nation, if they would be safe, and yet 
have no better principle: Whether they prefer the having 
of their will though it be their destruction, rather than 
comply with things of Necessity? That will excuse me. 
But I should wrong my native country to suppose this. 

For I look at the People of these Nations as the blessing 
of the Lord: and they are a People, blessed by God. They 
have been so; and they will be so, by reason of that im¬ 
mortal seed which hath been, and is, among them: those 
Eegenerated Ones in the land, of several judgments ; who 
are all the Flock of Christ, and lambs of Christ. ‘ His/ 
though perhaps under many unruly passions, and troubles 
of spirit; whereby they give disquiet to themselves and 
others : yet they are not so to God ; since to us He is a God 
of other patience ; and He will own the least of Truth in 
the hearts of His People. And the People being the bless¬ 
ing of God, they will not be so angry but they will prefer 
their safety to their passions, and their real security to 
forms, when Necessity calls for Supplies. Had they not 
well been acquainted with this principle, they had never 
seen this day of Gospel Liberty. 

But if any man shall object, “ It is an easy thing to talk 
of Necessities when men create Necessities : would not the 
Lord Protector make himself great and his family great? 
Doth not he make these Necessities ? And then he will 
come upon the People with his argument of Necessity! ”— 
This were something hard indeed. But I have not yet 
known what it is to “make Necessities/’ whatsoever the 
thoughts or judgments of men are. And I say this, not 
only to this Assembly, but to the world, That the man 


appendix. 


295 


liveth not who can come to me and charge me with haying, 
in these great Revolutions, “made Necessities.” I chal¬ 
lenge even all that fear God. And as God hath said, 
“ My glory I will not give unto another,” let men take 
heed and be twice advised how they call His Revolutions, 
things of God, and his working of things from one period 
to another,—how, I say, they call them Necessities of 
men’s creation ! For by so doing, they do vilify and lessen 
the works of God, and rob Him of His glory ; which He 
hath said He will not give unto another, nor suffer to be 
taken from Him ! We know what God did to Herod, 
when he was applauded and did not acknowledge God. 
And God knoweth what He will do with men, when they 
call His Revolutions human designs, and so detract from 
His glory. These issues and events have not been fore¬ 
cast ; but £ were ’ sudden Providences in things : whereby 
carnal and worldly men are enraged ; and under and at 
which, many, and I fear some good men, have murmured 
and repined, because disappointed of their mistaken 
fancies. But still all these things have been the wise de¬ 
posings of the Almighty ; though instruments have had 
their passions and frailties. And I think it is an honour 
to God to acknowledge the Necessities to have been of 
God’s imposing, when truly they have been so, as indeed 
they have. Let us take our sin in our actions to ourselves ; 
it’s much more safe than to judge things so contingent, as 
if there were not a God that ruled the Earth ! 

We know the Lord hath poured this Nation from vessel 
to vessel, till He poured it into your lap, when you came 
first together. I am confident that it came so into your 
hands; and was not judged by you to be from counter¬ 
feited or feigned Necessity, but by Divine Providence and 
Dispensation. And this I speak with more earnestness, 
because I speak for God and not for men. I would have 
any man to come and tell of the Transactions that have 
been, and of those periods of time wherein God hath made 


296 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 


these Revolutions ; and find where he can fix a feigned 
Necessity! I could recite particulars, if either my strength 
would serve me to speak, or yours to hear. If you would 
consider * the great Hand of God in His great Dispensa¬ 
tions, yon would find that there is scarce a man who fell 
off, at any period of time when God had any work to do, 
who can give God or His work at this day a good word. 

“ It was,” say some, “ the cunning of the Lord Protec¬ 
tor,”—I take it to myself,—“ it is the craft of such a man, 
and his plot, that hath brought it about ! ” And, as they 
say in other countries, “ There are five or six cunning men 
in England that have skill ; they do all these things.” 
Oh, what blasphemy is this ! Because men that are with¬ 
out God in the world, and walk not with Him, know not 
what it is to pray or believe, and to receive returns from 
God, and to be spoken unto by the Spirit of God,—who 
speaks without a Written Word sometimes, yet according 
to it ! God hath spoken heretofore in divers manners. 
Let Him speak as He pleaseth. Hath He not given us 
liberty, nay is it not our duty, To go to the Law and the 
Testimony ? And there we shall find that there have been 
impressions, in extraordinary cases, as well without the 
Written Word as with it. And therefore there is no dif¬ 
ference in the thing thus asserted from truths generally 
received,—except we will exclude the Spirit ; without 
whose concurrence all other teachings are ineffectual [ Yea, 
your Highness; the true God’s- Voice, Voice of the Eter¬ 
nal, is in the heart of every Man ;— there, ivherever else it 
be .] He doth speak to the hearts and consciences of men ; 
and leadeth them to His Law and Testimony, and there 
‘ also ? He speaks to them : and so gives them double 
teachings. According to that of Job : “ God speaketh 
once, yea twice ; ” and to that of David : “ God hath 
spoken once, yea twice have I heard this.” These men 
that live upon their mumpsimus and sumpsimus \Bulstrode 


* ‘ if that you would revolve ’ in orig. 


APPENDIX. 


297 


looks astonished ], their Masses and Service-books, their 
dead and carnal worship,—no marvel if they be strangers 
to God, and to the works of God, and to spiritual dispen¬ 
sations. And because they say and believe thus, must we 
do so too ? We, in this land, have been otherwise in¬ 
structed ; even by the Word, and Works, and Spirit of 
God. 

To say that men bring forth these things when God doth 
them,—judge you if God will bear this ? I wish that 
every sober heart, though he hath had temptations upon 
him of deserting this Cause of God, yet may take heed how 
he provokes and falls into the hands of the Living God by 
such blasphemies as these ! According to the Tenth of 
the Hebrews : “ If we sin wilfully after that we have re¬ 
ceived the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more 
sacrifice for sin.” ‘A terrible word/ It was spoken 
to the Jews, who, having possessed Christ, apostatised 
from Him. What then ? Nothing but a fearful “ falling 
into the hands of the Living God ! ”—They that shall at¬ 
tribute to this or that person the contrivances and produc¬ 
tion of those mighty things God hath wrought in the 
midst of us ; and ‘ fancy ’ that they have not been the Rev¬ 
olutions of Christ Himself, “upon whose shoulders the 
Government is laid,”—they speak against God, and they 
fall under His hand without a Mediator. That is, if we 
deny the Spirit of Jesus Christ the glory of all His works 
in the world ; by which He rules kingdoms, and doth ad¬ 
minister, and is the rod of nis strength,—we provoke the 
Mediator : and He may say : 1 will leave you to God, I will 
not intercede for you ; let Him tear you to pieces ! I will 
leave thee to fall into God’s hands ; thou deniest me my 
sovereignty and power committed to me; I will not inter¬ 
cede nor mediate for thee ; thou fallest into the hands of 
the Living God !—Therefore whatsoever you may judge 
men for, howsoever you may say, “ This is cunning, and 
politic, and subtle,”-—take heed again, I say, how you 


298 


OLIVER CROMWELL. 

judge of His Revolutions as the product of man’s inven¬ 
tions !—I may be thought to press too much upon this 
theme. But I pray God it may stick upon your hearts 
and mine. The worldly-minded man knows nothing of 
this, but is a stranger to it ; and thence his atheisms, and 
murmurings at instruments, yea repining at God Himself. 
And no wonder; considering the Lord hath done such 
things amongst us as have not been known in the world 
these thousand years, and yet notwithstanding is not 
owned by us !— 

There is another Necessity, which you have put upon 
us, and we have not sought. I appeal to God, Angels and 
Men,—if I shall ‘ now 9 raise money according to the 
Article in the Government, * whether I am not compelled 
to do it ! 5 Which ‘ Government 9 had power to call you 
hither ; and did ;—-and instead of seasonably providing for 
the Army, you have laboured to overthrow the Govern¬ 
ment, and the Army is now upon Free-quarter ! And you 
would never so much as let me hear a tittle from you con¬ 
cerning it. Where is the fault ? Has it not been as if 
you had a purpose to put this extremity upon us and the 
Nation ? I hope, this was not in your minds. I am not 
willing to judge so :—but such is the state into which we 
are reduced. By the designs of some in the Army who 
are now in custody, it was designed to get as many of them 
as possible,—through discontent for want of money, the 
Army being in a barren country, near thirty weeks behind 
in pay, and upon other specious pretences,—to march for 
England out of Scotland ; and, in discontent, to seize their 
General there [ General Monk ], a faithful and honest man, 
that so another [ Colonel Overtoil] might head the Army. 
And all this opportunity taken from your delays. Whe¬ 
ther will this be a thing of feigned Necessity ? What 
could it signify, but “ The Army are in discontent al¬ 
ready ; and we will make them live upon stones ; we will 
make them cast off their governors and discipline ” ? What 


APPENDIX. 


299 


can be said to this ? I list not to unsaddle myself, and 
put the fault upon your backs. Whether it hath been for 
the good of England, whilst men have been talking of this 
thing or the other [Building Constitutions ], and pretend¬ 
ing liberty and many good words,—whether it has been as 
it should have been ? Iam confident you cannot think it 
has. The Nation will not think so. And if the worst 
should be made of things, I know not what the Cornish 
men nor the Lincolnshire men may think, or other Coun¬ 
ties ; but I believe they will all think they are not safe. 
A temporary suspension of “ caring for the greatest liber¬ 
ties and privileges ” (if it were so, which is denied) would 
not have been of such damages as the not providing against 
Free-quarter hath run the Nation upon. And if it be my 
“ liberty ” to walk abroad in the fields, or to take a jour- 
ney, yet it is not my wisdom to do so when my house is on 
fire !— 

I have troubled you with a long Speech ; and I believe 
it may not have the same resentment * with all that it 
hath with some. But because that is unknown to me, I 
shall leave it to God ;—and conclude with this : That I 
think myself bound, as in my duty to God, and to the 
People of these Nations for their safety and good in every 
respect,—I think it my duty to tell you that it is not for 
the profit of these Nations, nor for common and public 
good, for you to continue here any longer. And there¬ 
fore I do declare unto you, That I do dissolve this Parlia¬ 
ment.! 

* Means ‘sense excited by it.’ 

tOld Pamphlet: reprinted in Parliamentary History; xx. 404-431. 



I 


INDEX. 


Age, Cromwell the pathfinder of 
his, 19. 

Aikin, Lucy, Memoirs of James I. 
Court referred to, 37. 

Aims, Cromwell’s, 26. 

Alexander, VII., Pope, and 
Blake, 207. 

America, First English emigrants 
to, 48 ; Sir H. Vane’s flight 
to, 233. 

Ancestry, early days, etc., of 
Cromwell, 2o-48. 

Anecdotes :— 

Charles II. and the blacksmith, 
172. 

Charles II. and the cook, 172. 

“ and the jack, 172. 

Cromwell and the Bishop, 138. 
«* and the Duke of Sa¬ 
voy, 212. 

Cromwell and the Quaker, 
311-312. 

Cromwell and the monkey, 29. 
«* at Knaresborough, 
23. 

Cromwell, Discipline of, 138. 

Cromwell? “Who will bring 
me this,” 133, 136. 

Cromwell’s wrestle with 
Charles I., 28. 

Cruelty of an Irish priest, 213. 

De Betz on Cromwell, 21. 

Dream, A singular, 34. 

Drowning, An escape from, 29. 

Eliot, Sir J., and the secretary, 
72. 


Hall, A reason for perfuming 

a, 168. 

“If it were to see me hanged !” 
145. 

Keeling, Serjeant, and Sir H. 
Vane, 251. 

Leslie and the English soldier, 
151. 

Marston Moor fight, A story 
of, 118. 

Mazarin and Madame Tu- 
renne, 216. 

Muskerry, Lord, and George 
Kooke, 181. 

“One charge more, gentle¬ 
men,” 135, 137. 

“ Our dear brother Oliver !” 
215. 

Present, A singular, 210. 
Powder, Sitting on, 90. 

Bupert and the prisoner, 116. 
Shepherd and the noble in¬ 
fant, The, 169. 

South, Dr., and Charles II., 83. 
Tiberius, A modern, 20. 

Vote, Effects of a single, 82. 

“ Who is that sloven?” 18. 

Balance of Government , Vane’s, re¬ 
ferred to, 255. 

Basing, Taking of, referred to, 
139. 

Battle cries, 103, 115, 154. 
Battles, Marston Moor, 114; 
Naseby, 133-140 ; Dunbar, 
146, 264 ; Worcester, 165-169. 








302 


INDEX. 


Baxter’s estimate of Sir H. Vane, 
230 ; and Sir H. Vane, 238, 

242. 

Beard, Dr., 31. 

Beauty combined with strength, 
159. 

Bedford Level, The draining of, 
107-9. 

BlUia Polyglotta Waltoni, charac¬ 
ter o£, 200. 

Bishops’ “ Kemonstrance, ” The, 
87. 

Bisset, Andrew, on Cromwell and 
Dunbar, 146, 148. 

Blake, Admiral—birth and par¬ 
entage, 203 ; enters Par¬ 
liament, 203; services in 
the West, 204 ; Character of, 
204 ; enters the navy, 205 ; 
and Cromwell, 205 ; en¬ 
gagement with Bupert, 205 ; 
naval reformer, 206 ; secures 
the supremacy of the seas, 
207 ; naval victories, 207 ; 
letter to Cromwell, 207 ; 
capture of Spanish galleons, 
207 ; achievements, 208 ; at 
Santa Cruz, 209 ; death, fu¬ 
neral, and indignities to, 209 ; 
Clarendon’s tribute to, 210. 

Bletchington, The taking of, re¬ 
ferred to, 133. 

Body, Exhuming of Hampden’s 
(note), 112. 

Bohemia, Queen of, marriage, 
128 ; misfortunes, 129. 

Boroughs, The rejected of three, 

243. 

Boscobel, The romance of, 170. 

“Bottomless Bagge,” Character 
of, 64, 76 ; and Magna Charta, 
69. 


Boucher, Elizabeth, 42. 

Brewer, Anthony, Comedy of, 32. 

Brodie’s History of the British 
Empire referred to, 15. 

Broom, Van Tromp’s standard of 
the, 206. 

Browning, Eobert, quoted, 200, 

201 . 

Buckingham, Duke of, and Sir J. 
Eliot, 50 ; interview be¬ 
tween, 56-57 ; and Captain 
Pennington, 58 ; character 
of, 62 ; and the St. Peter, 
63 ; and the Cadiz Expedi¬ 
tion, 64 ; Charles I. ’s letter 
concerning, 65 ; Eliot on. 
65 ; impeachment, 66-67; 
and Wentworth, 72, 73. 

Buckingham, Duke of, at Worces¬ 
ter, 165. 

Bunyan and Sir H. Vane, 242. 

Burial, Cromwell’s, 226. 

Burnet, Bishop, referred to, 255. 

Cabinet, The Bed Velvet, re¬ 
ferred to, 235. 

Cadiz, Buckingham’s expedition 
to, 63. 

Calvert, Sir J., and Captain Nutt, 
51, 52. 

Cambridge, Cromwell at, 40-42 ; 
returned to Parliament for, 
82 ; prompt actions at, 98. 

Cappadocia, St. George of, re¬ 
ferred to, 18. 

Carisbrooke Castle, Sir H. Vane 
imprisoned in, 240; works 
written in, 241. 

Carlyle’s estimate ot Cromwell, 
14 ; quoted, 40, 96, 100, 

123, 144 ; description of the 
battle of Dunbar, 150, 153 ; 



INDEX. 


303 


description of Cromwell at 
fifty-four, 187 ; on tlie death 
of Cromwell, 222. 

Castle Raby, Sir H. Vane at, 231, 
232. 

Cavalier and Roundhead, 98. 

“ Prince Rupert an ideal, 

131. 

Cavaliers, Character of the, 103. 

Ceremony, Cromwell and, 199. 

Chalgrove, The fatal fight at, 

110 , 111 . 

Character, Opinions as to Crom¬ 
well's, 10 ; Southey’s, 10 ; 
Forster’s, 11-12 ; Carlyle’s, 
14 ; Hume’s, 15 ; Orme’s, 
16; Rogers’, 16; Macaulay’s, 
16-18 ; a mythical, 18.^ 

Charles I., Cromwell a cousin of, 
25 ; a wrestle with, 31 ; 
England in the first years of, 
55 ; and Captain Penning¬ 
ton, 58 ; letter to Parlia¬ 
ment, 65 ; speech to Parlia¬ 
ment, 66 ; imprisons Eliot, 
67, 75, 76 ; governs by 

prerogative, 69 ; debate on 
his claim to commit, 71, 
72 ; claims the Fens, 78 ; 
Cromwell’s opposition to, 
78, 79 ; Short Parliament 
of, 80 ; attempt to seize 
the five members, 87, 88 ; 
flight to Hampton Court, 
89 ; erects his banner at 
Nottingham, 89 ; and the 
nobility, 121, 122 ; sister of, 
129-128 ; high hopes of suc¬ 
cess, 132 ; desire to seize 
Cromwell, 133 ; in the 
north, 133 ; at Naseby fight, 
136; letters seized, 138 ; 


Cromwell’s intentions tow¬ 
ard, 179-181 ; falsity of, 
180, 181. 

Charles II. proclaimed king of 
the Scots, 149 ; duplicity of, 
149 ; invasion of England, 

164 ; at Worcester city, 164, 

165 ; conduct at the battle of 

Worcester, 167 ; character of 
his adventures, 169, 170 ; 

retreats and disguises, 172 ; 
and the blacksmith, 172 ; 
and turning the jack, 172 ; 
and the ready-witted cook, 
172 ; gratitude of, 173 ; re¬ 
ward for Cromwell’s life, 219; 
restoration and reign of, 227; 
and Sir H. Vane, 250. 

Cheshunt, Richard Cromwell re¬ 
tires to, 245. _ 

Childhood, Character of Crom¬ 
well’s, 30. 

Children, Cromwell’s, 45 ; his 
love and concern for, 159. 

Christian versus soldier, 22. 

Civil War, Commencement of, 
89. 

Clarendon, Lord, quoted, 92, 
101, 144, 165, 166, 169, 173, 
210, 255 ; on the adventures 
and restoration of Charles 
II., 172, 173. 

Claypole, Death of Mrs., 221. 

Cleaveland, Anecdote of the 
poet, 82. 

Cockpit, The (note), 158. 

Coke, Sir E., on Magna Charta, 
72. 

Committee, A war, 146, 147. 

“ Nature of a, 176. 

Commons, House of, and Eliot’s 
imprisonment, 67 ; exciting 




304 


INDEX. 


scene in, 74, 75 ; privileges 
violated by the king, 88. 

Commonwealth, The Achilles of 
the, 163. 

Compensation, A Divine, 219, 

220 . 

Conscience, Cromwell and free¬ 
dom of, 192. 

Contemporaries of Cromwell : 
Sir J. Eliot, 49 ; Pym, 91 ; 
Hampden, 163 ; Prince Ru- 
pert, 128 ; Sir H. Vane, 355. 

Convictions, Religious, of Sir H. 
Vane, 232. 

Council, Cromwell’s intended 
Protestant, 214. 

Court, Cromwell’s, 199. 

Cromwell :— 

Opinions as to the character 
of, 10-18 ; a mythic charac¬ 
ter, 18 ; the pathfinder of 
his age, 19 ; Hampden’s 
prophecy of, 19 ; greatness 
of, 19 ; place in English 
story, 19 ; fame of, 19 ; 
Cardinal de Retz’s opinion 
of, 21 ; unconscious great¬ 
ness of, 21 ; a thorough 
Puritan, 22 ; his library, 
23; at Knaresborough, 23 ; 
ancestry, 27 ; birth, 28 ; 
scenery and traditions of 
his infancy, 29 ; childhood, 
29, 32 ; at school, 29 ; 
wrestle with Charles I., 31 ; 
a singular dream, 31 ; acts 
in a comedy, 32 ; school¬ 
master, 32; enters Cam¬ 
bridge, 40 ; death of his 
father, 41 ; marriage, 42 ; 
home life, 43 ; removal to 

, St. Ives, 44 ; hypochondria, 


44 ; children, 45 ; removes 
to Ely, 46 ; future destiny 
of, 46 ; intended emigration 
to America, 48 ; opposes 
the king’s claims to the 
Fens, 78 ; Lord of the 
Fens, 80 ; contrasted with 
Hampden, 80, 81 ; mem¬ 
ber for Cambridge, 82 ; 
Sir P. Warwick’s descrip¬ 
tion of, 83 ; Dr. South on, 
83 ; training the Ironsides, 
95, 99 ; prompt action at 
Cambridge, 98 ; advice to 
his troops, 101 ; at Marston 
Moor, 113-127 ; anecdote 
of, 118 ; at Newbury fight, 
122 ; quarrel with Earl 
Manchester, 123 ; the Scots 
conspire against him, 124- 
126 ; impeaches Earl Man¬ 
chester, 126 ; and the Self- 
denying Ordinance, 126, 
132 ; success of, 133 ; king’s 
desire to capture, 133 ; re¬ 
tained in command, 133 ; at 
Naseby, 132-140; rapid 
victories of, 138, 139 ; and 
the Bishop of Winchester, 
138 ; strict discipline, 138 ; 
honors conferred on, 139 ; 
invincible, 139 ; commands 
the Irish expedition, 141, 
142, 143 ; leaves London in 
state, 143 ; takes Tredagh, 
143 ; the curse of, 143 ; re¬ 
ception on returning from 
Ireland, 144, 145 ; at Dunbar, 
146-155 ; humanity of, 155; 
proclamation of, 157 ; the 
Maccabaeus of the Common¬ 
wealth, 163 ; judged from a 





INDEX, 


305 


■wrong centre, 163 ; at Wor¬ 
cester, 164-168 ; the most 
capable man, 176, 177 ; 

disperses the Rump Parlia¬ 
ment, 177, 178 ; speeches, 
178 ; speech to Ludlow, 178 ; 
intentions toward Charles 
I., 178-183 ; and the mon¬ 
archy, 180 ; no republican, 

181 ; discovery of the false¬ 
ness of Charles I., 181 ; 
Lord Protector, 182 ; com¬ 
pared with Napoleon I., 

182 ; compared with Wash¬ 

ington, 183-184 ; inaugura¬ 
tion as Lord Protector, 186 ; 
at fifty-four, 187 ; urged to 
assume the crown, and letter 
on the subject, 187-188 ; 
speech on refusing the 
crown, 189-192 ; and free¬ 
dom of conscience, 192 ; and 
religious liberty, 193-197 ; 
domestic life, 198 ; court, 
199; and Dr. Owen, 199 ; 
and learning, 199-201 ; for¬ 
eign policy, 202 ; and Spain, 
202, 203, 217 ; and Admiral 
Blake, 205; and Cardinal 
Mazarin, 210 ; and the Vau- 
dois persecution, 212, 215 ; 
the Huguenots appeal to, 
213 ; scheme for a Protestant 
council, 215 ; compared with 
Gustavus Adolphus, 216 ; 
and Rome, 216, 217 ; life 
sought, 219 ; unhappiness 
of, 219, 220 ; greatness 

thrust upon him, 220 ; fears 
of his wife, 220 ; mother 
dies, 221 ; death of his 
daughter, 221; illness, 221 ; 


last scenes, 221-223 ; death, 

224 ; was he a failure ? 224. 

225 ; estimate and work of, 
225-226 ; burial, 226 ; the 
end, 228 ; and Sir H. Vane, 
237 ; difficult work of, 240. 

Cromwell, Letters of :— 

To Mrs. St. John, 47 ; to Col. 
Walton, 119-120 ; to Sir A. 
Hazlerig, 152 ; to General 
Leslie, 156; to his wife, 
158, 159, 160 ; to Bridget 
Ireton, 161 ; to Lord Fleet- 
wood, 188. 

Cromwell, Elizabeth, 106. 
Cromwell, Richard, 219, 242, 
245 ; Vane’s attack on, 244 ; 
abdication and retirement, 
245. 

Cromwell, Robert, 28. 

Cromwell, Sir Oliver, 27. 
Cromwell, Thomas, 25 ; Life of 
Oliver Cromwell quoted, 79. 
Cromwelliad, The, 21. 

Crown, Cromwell urged to as¬ 
sume the, 187 t letter on the 
subject, 187, 188 ; speech on 
the subject, 189-192. 
Culpepper, Sir J„ on the taxes, 
87. 

Curse of Cromwell, The, 144. 

B’Aubigne quoted, 141, 162. 
Death, A soldier’s, 120 ; Crom¬ 
well’s, 221-224 ; Sir H. 
Vane’s meditations on, 246, 
248. 

De Retz’s, Cardinal, opinion of 
Cromwell, 21. 

Derby, Lord, Execution referred 
to, 172. 

Devizes taken by Cromwell, 138. 




306 


INDEX. 


Devon, Sir J. Eliot, Vice-Admiral 
of, 50. 

Dickson, John, Offence and pun¬ 
ishment of, 35. 

Disraeli, Isaac, quoted, 76. 

Dissent, Laws against Puritan, 55. 

Donnington, The fight at, 121 ; 
escape of the Royalists after, 
122 . 

Dream, A prophetic, 31. 

Drowning, Cromwell’s escape 
from, 28. 

Dunbar, Bisset on the battle of, 
146 ; position of the com¬ 
batants, 151 ; Cromwell on 
the position, 153 ; fatal 
movement of the Scots, 153 ; 
battle cries, 154 ; the con¬ 
flict, 154 ; trophies, 155. 

Dryden quoted, 81. 

Ecclesiastical Polity referred to, 76. 

Edinburgh Review referred to, 9. 

Edward’s Gangrena referred to, 
192, 193 ; Treatise against 
Toleration referred to, 193. 

Elijah of the English Revolution, 
The, 49. 

Eliot, Sir J., Forster’s life of, 
49 ; birth of, 49 ; Vice-Ad¬ 
miral of Devon, 49 ; enters 
Parliament, 49 ; and Capt. 
Nutt, 50 ; imprisonment, 52 ; 
interview with Buckingham, 
56, 57 ; and the St. Peter, 
63 ; remarks on the king’s 
letter, 65 ; on the value of 
the monarchy, 65 ; on the 
privileges of Parliament, 
65 ; impeaches the Duke of 
Buckingham, 66, 67 ; impris¬ 
onment, 67 ; release, 68 ; 


conspiracy against, 69 ; in 
the Gate House, 70 ; re¬ 
turned to Parliament, 70 ; 
on religion, 70, 71 ; rebukes 
the secretary, 72 ; and Went¬ 
worth, 73 ; death of his wife, 
74; last speech in Parlia¬ 
ment, 75 ; prisoner in the 
Tower, 75 ; Monarchy of Man 
referred to, 76, 177; sickness 
and death, 76, 77 ; vindic¬ 
tiveness of Charles to, 76. 

Ely, Cromwell removes to, 46. 

England during the first years of 
Charles I., 55. 

England invaded by Charles II., 
164. 

England, Old, 95. 

England, The Patron Saint of, 
alluded to, 18. 

England, What Cromwell saved 
her from, 163. 

English and Scottish villages, 
147, 148. 

English story, Cromwell’s place 
in, 19. 

Enthusiasm, Cromwell enlists re¬ 
ligious, 192-200. 

Essex, Earl of, Conduct of, 120, 

121 . 

Everard’s Gospel Treasury refer¬ 
red to, 241. 

Execution of Sir H. Vane, 253-255- 

Exeter taken by Cromwell, 139. 

Fairfax, Lord, at Marston Moor, 
114 ; and the Scottish com¬ 
mand, 145. 

Fairfax, Sir Thomas, Parliament¬ 
ary general, 127, 132 ; com- 
mission to Cromwell, 133 ; 
at Naseby, 136. 



INDEX. 


Faith, Cromwell a defender of 
the, 212. 

Fame, Durability of Cromwell’s, 

20 , 21 . 

Farewell to Brighton Bells , quoted, 

171. 

Felton, John, 74. 

Fens, The region of the, 28 ; 
draining of the, 78 ; the 
king claims the, 79 ; Lord 
of the, 80. 

Fidelity, A story of, 170. 

Fifth Monarchy men, 193. 

Finch, Lord Keeper, speech to 
Parliament, 203. 

Fisher, Lady, and Charles II.,173. 

Five Members, Attempt to ar¬ 
rest the, 87, 88. 

Fleetwood, Lord, Cromwell’s let¬ 
ter to, 188, 189. 

Fleming, John, Offence and pun¬ 
ishment of, 35, 36. 

Folio, An old, 9. 

Forster, Chief Justice, and Sir 
H. Yane, 250. 

Forster, John, estimate of Crom¬ 
well, 11 ; on James I., 37 ; 
Life of Eliot referred to, 49 ; 
Lives of statesmen referred 
to, 11, 13 ; quoted, 26, 36, 49, 
56, 84, 102, 154, 224, 231. 

Fox, George, and Cromwell, 199. 

France in the days of Cromwell, 
211 ; and the Yaudois perse¬ 
cution, 214. 

Freedom and Europe in Crom¬ 
well’s day, 202. 

Galleons, Spanish, captured by 
Blake, 207. 

Gambling, Returning money won 
in, 47. ' 


307 

Gate-house, Sir J. Eliot impris¬ 
oned in, 70. 

Geddes, Jenny, alluded to, 149. 

Generals, Conduct of the Parlia¬ 
mentary, 121. 

Gentleman's Magazine referred to, 

112 . 

Gift, James I. and the Free, 39. 

Goodricke’s, Sir J., Anecdote of 
Cromwell, 23. 

Gorges, Sir F., Noble conduct of, 
60. 

Goring, Lord, at Marston Moor, 
112 ; at Taunton, 204, 

Grandeur, True, 20. 

Greatness, Unconscious, 20, 21 ; 
founded on disorder, 179. 

Guizot’s estimate of Cromwell, 
12, 13 ; quoted, 85, 132, 141, 
179. 

Gustavus Adolphus compared 
with Cromwell, 216. 

Gustavus of the seas, A, 208. 

Hall, Perfuming Worcester, 168. 

Hallam quoted, 175. 

Hampden, prophecy concerning 
Cromwell, 19 ; and Cromwell 
as playmates, 33 ; and Crom¬ 
well contrasted, 80, 81 ; 

and the ship money, 84, 
85 ; ancestry of, 106 ; early 
life and marriage, 107 ; ca¬ 
reer in Parliament, 107 ; 
character, 107, 108 ; a cham¬ 
pion of liberty, 108 ; Hume’s 
charge against, 109; the 
three stages of his life, 109 ; 
death, 110, 111 ; ancestral 
home, 111, 112 ; body ex¬ 
humed (note), 111, 112. 

Hartlib and Cromwell, 200. 




308 


INDEX. 


Heath, Carrion, 30. 

Hebrew of the Hebrews, A, 22. 

Henry IV. of France, assassina¬ 
tion referred to, 33. 

Henry VIII. and Bichard Will¬ 
iams, 25. 

Herbert, Lord, Cromwell’s refer¬ 
ence to, 160. 

Hinchinbrook, Festivities at, 26. 

Holland humbled by Blake, 206. 

Home-life of great men, 41, 42 ; 
Cromwell’s, 42, 198. 

Home, Hampden’s ancestral, 112, 
113. 

Horsewhip, Blake’s standard of 
the, 206. 

Household, The Puritan, 104, 
105. 

Howe, John, and Cromwell, 199. 

Huguenots, Appeal of, to Crom¬ 
well, 213. 

Humanity of Cromwell, 155. 

Hume’s estimate of Cromwell, 
13 ; quoted, 43, 108. 

Huntingdon, birthplace of Crom¬ 
well, 28 ; Cromwell at the 
Grammar School of, 30; 
Member for, 80. 

Hutchinson, Mrs., quoted, 98. 

Hypochondria, Cromwell’s fits 
of, 44, 45. 

Hypocrisy, Hampden accused of, 
109. 

Impeachment of Buckingham, 
66, 67. 

Imprison, Debate on Charles I.'s 
claim to, 72, 73. 

Incendiary, Cromwell an, 125. 

Independents, 123. 

Infancy, Cromwell’s, 29. 

Invinoible, Cromwell the, 139. 


Ireland, Cromwell sent to, 141, 
142 ; State of, in 1649, 142 ; 
Cromwell made Lord Gov¬ 
ernor, 143 ; Cromwell’s suc¬ 
cess in, 143, 144 ; Crom¬ 
well’s return from, 144. 

Ireton at Naseby, 134, 136. 

Ireton, Bridget, Cromwell’s letter 
to, 161. 

Irish, How Cromwell dealt with, 
143, 144. 

Ironsides, Training of, 95, 96, 
98, 99 ; Cromwell’s account 
of the, 99 ; Forster’s account, 
102 ; character of, 103, 104. 

Islip Bridge, Fight at, referred 
to, 132. 

James I. at Hinchinbrook, 26, 
27 ; character of, 34 ; Henry 
IV. on, 36 ; personal appear¬ 
ance, 36, 40 ; and the Puri¬ 
tan deputation, 38 ; extrava¬ 
gance ofi 39 ; claims to 
learning, 39; superstition, 
39; and Parliament, 54; 
last Parliament of, 65; 
death, 55. 

Keeling, Serjeant, and Sir H. 
Vane, 251. 

King, Nominal and Beal, 177. 

King, On the word of a, 138. 

“ King Pym,” 91. 

King, The uncrowned, 9, 10. 

King versus Parliament, 66, 67. 

Knaresborough, Cromwell at, 23. 

Landor, W. S., Imaginary Con* 
versations, referred to, 27. 

Lane, Jane, and Charles II., 172, 
173. 



INDEX. 


309 


Land, Arch., and Sir H. Vane, 
232. 

Law and the King, The, 178, 179. 

Learning, Cromwell’s, 23 ; fos¬ 
tered by Cromwell, 199, 200. 

Leslie, General, at Dunbar, 147, 
148 ; and the prisoner, 151 ; 
Cromwell’s letter to, 156. 

Letter, Charles II. on Sir H. 
Vane, 250. 

Letters, Cromwell’s, 14, 197 ; the 
king’s cabinet of, 138. 

Liberty versus absolutism, 86; 
Hampden a champion of, 
108 ; Cromwell’s ideas of re¬ 
ligious, 193 ; correspondence 
and speeches on, 193-197. 

Library, Cromwell’s, 23. 

Life, Conflicting theories of 
Cromwell’s, 9-24. 

“ Cromwell’s, sought after, 
219. 

Lily the astrologer referred to, 56. 

Lingua , The comedy of, 32. 

Lintz Castle, Rupert a prisoner 
at, 130. 

Literature, Present religious, 23. 

Lockhart, the ambassador to 
France, 213, 214. 

London, The plague in, 56 ; a 
great storm in, 68; Crom¬ 
well’s departure from, in 
1649, 143 ; alarm in, at 
Charles II. ’s invasion, 165. 

44 Lord of the Fens,” Cromwell 
called, 80. 

Louis XIV. and Cromwell, 215. 

Love of Ood and union with God, 
Vane’s, referred to, 241. 

Love-story, A prisoner’s, 130. 

Loyalty versus Liberty, 96. 

Ludlow and Cromwell, 178. 


Lying, Give up, 181. 

Lytton, Lord, quoted, 92. 

MacOdeghan treachery of, 142. 

Macaulay, estimate of Cromwell, 
16 ; quoted, 111, 137. 

Magna Charta, Eliot and Bagge 
on, 69. 

Magnatia, Mathew Cotton’s, re¬ 
ferred to, 241. 

Malleus Monachorum, 26. 

Man, Cromwell the most capable, 
176, 177. 

Man, The child the father of the, 
29, 30. 

Manchester, Earl of, Conduct of, 
120, 121 ; quarrel with 

Cromwell, 123 ; impeached 
by Cromwell, 126. 

Manton quoted, 23. 

Maria, Henrietta, mentioned, 
74 ; clause in her marriage 
treaty, 58 ; flight of, 130. 

Marriage, Cromwell’s, 42-44. 

Marston Moor, 113 ; night before 
the battle of, 114 ; battle of, 
115-118 ; spoils, 118 ; scene 
after the battle, 118 ; a tra¬ 
dition of the battle, 118, 119. 

Marvell, Andrew, and Cromwell, 

200 . 

Massachusetts, Vane Governor 
of, 233. 

Massacre, The Irish, 141, 142. 

Maurice, Prince, and Blake, 204. 

Maynard’s reply to the Scotch 
Chancellor, 126. 

May’s History of the Long Parlia¬ 
ment quoted, 109. 

Mazarin, Cardinal, and Crom¬ 
well, 210 ; and Madame Tu- 
renne, 216. 



310 


INDEX. 


Men, Cromwell and great, 200, 

201 . 

Men, Providential appearance of 
great, 20. 

Mercurius Aulicus referred to, 101. 

Milton quoted, 43, 62, 123, 337 ; 
and Cromwell, 201 ; sonnet 
on Vane, 237. 

Monarchy, Eliot on the nature 
of, 65; Cromwell and the 
idea of, 180. 

Monkey, Cromwell in peril with 
the, 29. 

Monopolies, 55, 84. 

Montrose referred to, 133. 

Mother, Fears of Cromwell’s, 
219 ; death of, 220, 221. 

Mounting, Unconscious, 22. 

Napoleon I., Cromwell compared 
to, 182. 

Naseby, Village of, 134 ; the old 
table at, 134. 

Naseby, Battle of, 133 ; night 
before the, 134 ; battle- 
cries, 135, 137 ; Rupert at, 
135 ; Cromwell at, 135-137 ; 
Charles I. at, 136 ; Macau¬ 
lay’s ballad of, quoted, 137 ; 
spoils, 138. 

Nation, On one man hangs the 
destiny of a, 176. 

Navy, Sir H. Vane treasurer of, 
234. 

Needham, Marchmont, on Crom¬ 
well, 100. 

Newbury, Fight at, 122 ; royalist 
retreat from, 122. 

Newcastle, General, at Marston 
Moor, 116, 118. 

Newcastle, Cromwell’s letter to 
tli e govenor of, 152. 


Nismes, Huguenote of, and 
Cromwell, 213. 

Nobility and the popular cause, 
The, 121. 

Noble, quoted, 29. 

Nominal and real King, 177. 

Notes, Foot, 15, 25, 27, 37, 94, 
112, 120, 158, 171, 187, 192, 
212, 246. 

Nottingham, The king’s standard 
erected at, 89. 

Nugent’s Life of John Hampden 
quoted, 108. 

Nutt, Captain, Career of, 50 ; 
captured by Eliot, 51 ; free¬ 
dom of, 52 ; audacity of, 53. 

Oak, The Boscobel, 171. 

Oceana , Harrington’s, referred to, 
241. 

Oliver versus Richard, 219. 

Ordinance, The Self-denying, 
185. 

Orme, W., Estimate of Crom¬ 
well, 16. 

Ormond, Marquis, in Ireland, 
142. 

Parliament, and James I., 117 ; 
Charles I., first, 56, 62 ; 

Charles I., letter to, 65 ; El¬ 
iot’s remarks on, 65 ; versus 
king, 67. 

Parliament, third of Charles I., 
70; king’s speech to, 70; 
Eliot’s speech in, 70-72 ; 
Subsidies granted by, 72 ; 
exciting scenes in, 75, 76. 

Parliament, The Short, 80 ; men 
composing it, 80-81 ; Hamp¬ 
den and Cromwell’s appear¬ 
ance in, 81. 

Parliament, The Long, 84, 108, 
109 ; the work of, 85 ; the 






INDEX. 


311 


King and the, 85; subsi¬ 
dies voted, 87 ; the King’s 
violation of, 88. 

Parliament, Fighting for the, 

102 . 

Parliament, The Rump, 175 ; 
unpopularity of, 176 ; dis¬ 
persed by Cromwell, 177, 
186. 

Parliament versus Cromwell, 181. 

Parliament, The Little, 186. 

Parliamentary Debates referred 
to, 212. 

Parliaments, A Bill for triennial, 
85. 

Peace in unrest, 220. 

“Pearl of Britain,” The, 128. 

Peasantry, Cromwell and the 
Scotch, 150. 

Peel, Sir R,, Lord Beaconsfield 
on, 91. 

Penderels and Charles II., The, 
172, 174. 

Pennington, Capt., Conduct of, 
58-60. 

Pepys quoted, 254. 

Petition of Bights referred to, 
75. 

Phillips, Speech of, 62. 

Pirates, Turkish, of the 17th 
century, 57 ; ravages by, 74. 

Plague, London during the, 56. 

Poetical quotations, 81, 112, 137, 
171, 185, 201, 228, 230, 237, 
246. 

Policy, Cromwell’s foreign, 202- 
218. 

Powder, Sitting on, 90. 

Power, Cromwell’s foreign, 202- 
218. 

Prayer, Sir H. Vane’s, 252. 

Prerogative, Governing by, 69,85. 


Present, A singular, 210. 

Presbyterianism, Aim of the 
Scots to impose, 149. 

Presbyterians, The, 123. 

Prisoner, Prince Rupert and the, 
117 ; Leslie and the, 151. 

Protector, Lord, Cromwell, 182 ; 
Inauguration, 186. 

Protestantism, Spain’s persecu¬ 
tion of, 202; Cromwell’s 
scheme for the benefit of, 
214. 

Protestants of Rochelle and 
England, 16, 61 ; persecu¬ 
tion of Irish. 141, 142. 

“ Protestation,” The Bishops’, 87. 

Pulteney’s anecdote of Cromwell, 

211 . 

Puritan cause. A champion of 
the, 14 ; Cromwell a thor¬ 
ough, 22, 23 ; laws against 
dissent, 55, 56 ; woman¬ 

hood, 104 ; household, 198. 

Puritanism, The knighthood of, 
97. 

Puritans and James I., 38. 

Pym, John, 91 ; greatest Mem¬ 
ber of Parliament, 91 ; 
birth and antecedents, 91 ; 
speech to Lord Clarendon, 
92 ; work in the Long Par¬ 
liament, 92-94 ; and the im* 
peachment of Stratford, 93. 

Quaker and Cromwell, The, 211. 

Quarterly Review referred to, 15. 

Queen of Hearts , The, 128. 

Raby Castle, Sir H. Vane at, 232. 

Raleigh, Sir W., referred to, 33 ; 
execution of, 37. 

Real king, 177. 




312 


INDEX. 


Rebellion, The Irish Catholic, 
141, 143. 

Reform Bill, Sir H. Vane’s, 236. 

Reformer, Blake a naval, 205. 

Reign, Character of James I.’s, 40. 

Religion, Eliot on, 70, 71. 

Reliquice Baxteriaim quoted, 100. 

Remonstrance, The Grand, 68, 
69, 87. 

Republican, Cromwell not a, 180. 

Republicans, A Parliament of, 
243. 

Retired Man's Meditations, Sir H. 
Vane’s, 241. 

Revolution, The Elijah of the 
English, 49. 

Reynolds, Dr., and James I., 39. 

Richelieu, Cardinal, and Ro¬ 
chelle, 58. 

Rights, The Petition of, 72. 

Rochelle Protestants and Eng¬ 
land, 57. 

Rogers, Henry, Estimate ot 
Cromwell, 16. 

Rogers, Samuel, quoted, 112. 

Romance and Fact, 101. 

Romanism, Cromwell’s hatred 
of, 33. 

Rome, Cromwell’s dealings with, 
216, 217. 

Rose, Thomas, Offence and pun¬ 
ishment of, 36. 

Ross, Fate of the Bishop of, 144. 

Roundhead, Origin of the term, 
98. 

Royalist commanders, Division 
amongst, 165. 

Rupert, Prince, at Marston 
Moor, 113-118 ; characteris¬ 
tics of, 128 ; parentage, 128, 
129 ; birth and ancestry, 
129; an Austrian prisoner, 


130 ; and the jailer’s daugh¬ 
ter, 130 ; character, 130 ; 
personal appearance, 131; 
impetuosity, 131 ; at Nase- 
by, 134-138 ; Charles I.’s 
evil genius, 136; defeated 
by Blake, 216. 

Saints' Everlasting Rest referred 
to, 242. 

Santa Cruz, Blake’s action at, 
209. 

Savoy, Duke of, and Cromwell, 
212, 216. 

Scenery of the Civil Wars, 95. 

Scilly Isles, Sir H. Vane impris¬ 
oned in, 245. 

Schoolmaster, Cromwell’s, 32. 

Scotch Commissioners, Crom¬ 
well’s correspondence with, 
193, 195. 

Scotland, Lord Chancellor of, 
and Whitelock, 124-126. 

Scottish and English Villages, 
147, 148. 

Scots at Dunbar, The, 153 ; bat¬ 
tle-cry of the, 154 ; Crom¬ 
well’s proclamation to, 157. 

Seas, State of, in Cromwell’s day, 
217. 

Secretaries, Cromwell’s, 200. 

Selden, John, quoted, 199. 

Severn and Teme rivers, 166, 167. 

Shakespeare, Date of the death 
of, 40. 

Shepherd and infant, The, 169. 

Sheridan quoted, 176. 

Ship money, Hampden’s opposi¬ 
tion to, 84. 

Shipton, Mother, A prophecy of, 
115. 

Sloven ? Who is that, 18. 



INDEX. 313 


Soap, The monopoly of, 84. 

Soldiers, Character of Rupert’s, 
103 ; English at Dunbar, 
146, 147. 

Sorddlo, Browning’s, quoted, 201. 

South, Dr., quoted, 83. 

Southey’s estimate of Cromwell, 
10 ; on Strafford’s impeach¬ 
ment, 93. 

Sovereignty of Cromwell, 19. 

Spain and Cromwell, 38; and 
England, 54 ; in the age of 
Cromwell, 202, 210 ; intol¬ 
erance of, 203 ; power of, 
211 ; Cromwell’s treatment 
of, 211. 

Speeches, Character of Crom¬ 
well’s, 178. 

St. Bartholomew, The Hiber¬ 
nian, 141. 

St. Germains, Birthplace of El¬ 
iot, 50. - 

St. Ives, Cromwell’s life at, 44 ; 
The Farmer of, 261. 

St. John, Mrs. Cromwell’s letter 
to, 47. 

St. Peter, Case of the, 62. 

Sterry’s Rise, Race, Royalty, etc. 
referred to, 241. 

Steward, Elizabeth, 25. 

Stewarts, Ancestors of the, 25. 

Stoughton, Dr., Church under the 
Civil Wars referred to, 94. 

Strafford, Earl of, Impeachment 
of, 85, 93 ; and Pym, 94. 

Superstition of James I., 39. 

Supremacy, James I. and kingly, 
39. 

Sidney, A.* Science of Government 
referred to, 177. 

Sykes’ Evangelical Essays referred 

to, 241. 


Sykes’ Biography of Vane quoted, 
255. 

Table, An historic, 134. 

Tactus, Cromwell in the charac¬ 
ter of, 32. 

Tagus, Rupert’s defeat at, 205. 

Taxes, Sir J. Culpepper on, 87. 

Tennant, F., Offence and punish¬ 
ment of, 35. 

Theology, A knowledge of Crom¬ 
well’s, necessary, 22. 

Thurloe quoted, 220, 224. 

Tiberius, A modern, 67. 

Toleration and the Presbyteri¬ 
ans, 192, 193. 

Tonnage and Poundage Bill, 61, 
62, 63, 64. 

Tower, Eliot’s life in the, 76. 

Townley family, A tradition in, 
118. 

Tracts, Nature of the Boscobel, 
170. 

Trade, Declaration of the com¬ 
mittee of, 75. 

Treaty, The French, and Crom¬ 
well, 214. 

Tredagh, Taking of, 143. 

Trent, Charles II. refuge at, 172. 

Trial, Sir H. Vane’s, 248-251. 

Tripoli, Bey of, and Blake, 208. 

Tromp, Van, and Blake, 206. 

Tunis, Bey of, and Blake, 207. 

Turenne, Madame, and Mazarin, 
214. 

Turkish Rovers, Ravages of, 57. 

Usurper, Cromwell the, 175. 

Vane, Sir H., claims for remem¬ 
brance, 230 ; character, 230, 
231; at Raby Castle, 232 ; 





314 


INDEX. 


parentage and religions con¬ 
victions, 232 ; flight and so¬ 
journ in America, 233 ; re¬ 
turn to England, 233 ; mar¬ 
riage and enters Parliament, 
234 ; Treasurer of the Navy, 
234 ; and Strafford’s papers, 
234, 235 ; as politician and 
ruler, 235-237 ; Reform Bill, 

236 ; Milton’s sonnet on, 

237 ; and Cromwell, 237; 
resemblance to Baxter, 238 ; 
the Healing Question , 239; 
imprisonment, 239; writings, 
241 ; re-enters Parliament, 
243 ; and his fellow republi¬ 
cans, 243, 244 ; attack on 
Richard Cromwell, 244, 245 ; 
arrest and imprisonment, 
245 ; meditation on death, 
246-248; trial, 248-251 ; 
prayer for his family, 252 ; 
execution, 252 ; last words, 
254 ; estimate and work of, 
255-257 ; the martyrdom of, 
268. 

Vanguard, The sailors of the, 58- 
31. 

Vaudois persecution and Crom¬ 
well, 212, 214. 

Victories, A series of brilliant, 
138, 139. 

Villages, Scottish and English, 
147,148. 

Vote, Effects of a single, 82. 

Waller quoted (note), 246. 

Walton, Colonel, Cromwell’s let¬ 
ter to, 119, 120. 

Warburton, Eliot, quoted, 14,197. 


Wars, Commencement of the 
Civil, 89 ; scenery of the, 
96 ; Carlyle on, 96 ; pre¬ 
paring for, 97 ; disastrous 
effects of, 109. 

Warwick, Sir P., Memoirs of, 
quoted, 82. 

Washington and Cromwell com¬ 
pared, 183, 184 ; work of 
each, 240. 

Watchwords, Battle, 103. 

Weldon’s character of James I. 
quoted, 37. 

Wentworth, Sir T., 50 ; on the 
Petition of Rights, 72, 73. 

Whitelocke’s account of the plot 
against Cromwell, 124. 

Wife, Fears of Cromwell’s, 220. 

Williams, Dr. Kewar, portraits of 
Cromwell (note), 187. 

Williams, Richard, 25. 

Winchester, The Bishop of, 138. 

Witchcraft and James I., 39. 

Witch-haunted region, A, 28. 

Womanhood, Puritan, 104. 

Wood, Anthony, on Sir H. Vane, 
231. 

Worcester, Charles II. at, 164; 
Cromwell, 165; royalist 
army at, 165 ; state and po¬ 
sition of the city, 166 ; Bat¬ 
tle of, 166-168; of to-day, 
168. 

Words, Sir H. Vane’s last, 264. 

Work, Unseen, 201 ; estimate of 
Cromwell’s, 225-226. 

Wyndham, Mistress, quoted, 
169. 


York, 


y 



The city of, 116. 
















c- y ^ V * 

* , ’> N ° * 

/ * /'~\ \ » V * (\ 



iSS' 5 ',' ^ -*i *, 

N*’ A , ■£\ 

V' ^ /■ A 

v ^ ^ a 


' S . ' <* ” * «S » *4 „ 

* S s A . „ 9/. * 0 » K* ^0 

°o 0 ° .‘° 
* «, 

- ^ ^ " ^5 


n. «A ^ 


^ >- ty^^^gr * ,0 C> 

^> r * o 0 CL "y 0 v 

* 0 * s ' "* </ s**, % *u»\^ 

t; ^ ^ n s > ' /, G > \» ^ r ^ . *• 

* - aV ^ ^ . $LJb . % - V* ’ . 

X •*- #W% * Cl <v> <* jAs» A. ^ 

'L **' . L L „ \ % %$ .* 

L -L " iSS/ •' ^ v -L- 

*V ^ %**iSGrv* 'c ^ 

^ * 4 

1 


f -V, * , # 0 \ 

y o o r & i.^U^ v ^ rO C' y '*^S 

• '/% 0 / *’••,"> * * 1 'V o • • r°%. *»«« 

<■ c, .v, -v jf\ /'Io c c.- * ■r>s^\ * Cl .v, 

7r> ^ ^.^v> % ° *3> <£ « Jplp, - 7/> .0^ 

A- ./> z * ^ X ” 

V , P> o 

* 

y o * x A v 

^ c° 



O 


& 




1 *o o'* 



_ V. /“ TS^U ■ v CV *H 

i-L t- ■'y Q <y ^ {. o .' 

*^E> ^ g , -\ » ,0- O, -V ,, K 0 ^ O,^ 

« 1 ' Ni s V V , • •■> N 0 V V 

°A > A 0 ’ ^ V- 

*>) 41 - ^ ^L, . T- <3 5» * 

^ ^ ^ ^ a v> S A' ^Va" ^ 

^ _ <p \V ^ A\vM/A 0 ^ 

\ So ^ 

^ . ' 

, s" A % ' w « ^ <0 X c 

~o* °StiX\ : 


c'X ^ fC 

^>v 0 /; 

/ ^ £■// 

-\> <n - 7, 


A S^’ jP - r> - L ‘ 

^ ^ ^ °» 4 

q r o > c 0 N f; ^ 

f ~y C > o -^-sn^ <* 

jr 
s 
•U 

0 o^ ^ S x° 

■' ^ '°y> ,, ''‘'y^ o i 

' V > *WaA % / / ^ ' 





» ,\L L » 
* ^ J . 


















O ' o v y * ,G -** **, <% 

- o O v c 0 c * .«y 

O l . ■* _~.r * -P -A X 

> + , V ^5x\Vl|%, * A <• 

vV 

S’ 

«• 


<>* c 

o o x 


\ 0 ^. 


•#> 

"O’ ; -A^p 

^ c 4 

“ V # > 

\> »-< *»/ -> " .0^ .s'*’ '-, Ar- 

«^^#/fc v ^ A* .%0.', ^ «, 

% $ - r- 0% -. * <<? * ,$jO>L = 

- ,^ V *5* o " ' - ' EJ ' "" 

b - '}*, '*> - ur >s - , , v 

- *- . ^ 

•o* 

& * ^ A 

* ' ^ ^ 


<• 



,y o 0^ 

= A ^ It 

- nkv>- s „r * 

O y h -N * oV c^. I- 

-t* .o n o \V c5> ,y 

. C * V V ^ r 0 / ' 

V S3 a a 

, 1 „ '"' 


0 X 


x°°^- 


r\ 

\^\"’’^r- 

J* ^ 

a <r’ ,Vi 

^ ,^ V * 

7 A- .. 4. -v •X X A 

^ * o * * * <o Y <- *7^T^ y ^ 

^ o r 0^ c 0 N c * ^ ^ 1 8 « ^ 

L> » <-jx^ s 'r <»% -» O 

<. -S?SAXhs& ^ 'XV jA ^ Mrf 07 /y^, + 

T/ vy < jS^\\/z^P •■>> <t 

■ * ** O o x 




V. ^ • L> ’ 

f 0‘ , 0 N '’ y %, 































